When Maryann Stuart was Maryann Nguyen and Maryann Nguyen was an exemplary college student, two of her best friends were Mexican. “Every time I would go to their house, there was always a dance party. Even the mom got into it. I love dancing. Asians don’t dance all that much. We like to gamble.” She says this with a big laugh, of course.
That said, her father took a gamble once. Maryann was three and living in a war-ravaged Vietnamese farming community when her father stole a boat and escaped with his family to the safe waters of Hong Kong harbour. There, they lived in a refugee camp for less than a year. Eventually, like tens-of-thousands of other “Vietnamese boat people” at that time, the Nguyens made their way to Canada. “When we got here, we lived in basements and my parents worked at pretty much anything they could get. Mom and dad had seasonal work in fish factories. Dad would wash dishes when that work wasn’t available. Mom would make money knitting Inuit sweaters and hats or painting those souvenir totem poles you see for sale in Gastown.”
From those humble and desperate first years in Canada, the family eventually built a stable, prosperous life. Maryann says she can’t recall the dangerous escape from Vietnam, nor the year in the refugee camp, nor her earliest days in Canada. But something about those trying times got baked into her marrow, because, like her mom and dad, Maryann is always moving forward, always looking to make life better for herself and her family.
“My dad is a very strong-willed man,” she says. “I’m a lot like him.” Maryann began her working life in the food and beverage industry, first as a waitress in an east Vancouver diner, later as a hostess in a high-end downtown restaurant. She had a diploma in hospitality management from Vancouver Community College and, at the time, saw the service industry as her future. Things changed.
“A lot of politics in that business,” she says. “When I got the opportunity to leave and work as a receptionist for an accounting firm, I took it – pay cut and all.” While working full-time, she went back to school and eventually became a certified financial accountant. That led to employment with Butterfield Development with whom she still works as an accountant and real-estate consultant. She is also a realtor who specializes in selling properties in the TCC tower and Jameson Building across the street. “I bought my first house when I was 21. That achievement was the real motivation for me to pursue real estate.”
At one time, Maryann lived in the TCC tower with her two sons, Ethan and Euan. The boys wanted a house, so they moved into the Mount Pleasant area. Recently, she “cashed out” that property and bought her dream home in Burnaby Heights. “I’m a really active person. Always moving. Where I am now, it’s a short ride over the bridge and I’m on the mountain snowboarding, cross-country skiing, hiking.”
For her sons, the move might have meant a change of high schools, but Maryann didn’t want that, so she enlisted her father to do the chauffeur work. “I moved around a lot growing up and I wanted my sons to have stability in their lives that I didn’t have — the same elementary school, the same high school.”
Maryann joined the Terminal City Club in 2010. If you don’t know her, she’s the one lighting up the room — be it the fitness facility, the members lounge, the wine bar …
“At times in my life, the TCC has been like an entire city to me. I lived in the building, worked in the building, played in the building. Now the club is like this adult playground for me. I’ve met so many friends here. We hang out together, travel together, work together. It’s been the most amazing experience. I’m never alone here. I like to think of the TCC as my partner in life.”
