Employee highlight: Vu Nguyen
May 2, 2024
Cabinet builder and father of five
Vu Nguyen, cabinet builder for Construction & Renovation Services, comes from a big family.
Nguyen grew up in Vietnam with five sisters and six brothers and moved over to the U.S. with his entire family in 1991 when he was about 18 years old. He is now the father of five girls whose ages range from 9 to 20.
The cabinet builder first started at UVA in 2006 and was working in the UVA surplus warehouse, which was then part of the Procurement department, when his wife encouraged him to apply to the UVA Apprenticeship Program. Nguyen’s father-in-law – My Vu – had participated in the program himself about 30 years prior, and he worked as a carpenter for HSPP Renovations up until his retirement in 2015.
Prior to entering the apprenticeship program in 2014, Nguyen had taken some courses in carpentry and was drawn to developing home repair and renovation skills. When he first started, he was working in what was then known as Project Services on the construction side which focused more on commercial construction that was very different from the carpentry work he was familiar with.
“But when I transferred to the cabinet shop I thought yes – this is what I want to do,” he said.
Nguyen was part of the team that recently completed a project to repair and refinish all the pews in the University Chapel as part of the building’s interior renovation. He took on the task of examining each pew for any needed repairs, making new matching parts, completing the repairs and then sanding all of the pews so the finishing process could be completed. In order to complete all 52 pews in a timely manner (the pews ranged in size from 6-to-10-feet long), Nguyen came in early and worked weekends throughout the project.
“I really enjoyed working on the pews,” he said. “That was quite a lot of work but really fun to do it.”
Outside of work, Nguyen stays busy caring for his daughters, who enjoy playing volleyball – a sport that he used to play in Vietnam.
“Back home in Vietnam, my family had a team and we would win championships,” he said. “I would go and watch every day with my dad and I loved it.”
Jane Centofante
Communications senior generalist
UVA Facilities Management
(434) 982-5846
janecentofante@virginia.edu