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Friday, October 30, 2009
'Whatever He Did, He Excelled At'
By Lloyd Jojola
Journal Staff Writer
Chang An, whose small, home-run plant business grew into what is Osuna Nursery, died Sunday.
The owner and operator of the North Valley operation was 65.
The Osuna Nursery site, on Osuna NE near Edith, was a small lot when the South Korean immigrant bought it from the previous owner about 1980, said Tony An, his son.
“He started putting house plants, and then one day a nursery plant rep came over and said, 'Hey, you need to start selling some shrubs here,' ” Tony An said. “So he started selling them. He put these shrubs out — my dad knew nothing about trees and shrubs (at the time), just interior plants, house plants — and then they just started selling.
“That was just a path to eventual growth.”
Although as an immigrant entrepreneur, An was already well on the move before that.
Chang Hwan An was born in Seoul — he grew up on the river banks of the Asian capital city, he once said — and came from a humble background, one with little money and without the chance to finish high school, his son said.
With at least a two-year commitment required, An joined the military. “He took advantage of that situation,” his son said. “He excelled at English, so he became what is known as a KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army) soldier.” It allowed him to serve with the Army.
“He worked his way up from administrative person to military intelligence and worked with the American Red Cross,” Tony An said.
It was through the American Red Cross that An met Horace McKinnon, whose brother, James McKinnon, and wife, Marie, live in Albuquerque.
“He really liked An, like everybody did that got to know him,” James McKinnon said.
The Albuquerqueans agreed to serve as sponsors to the An family, and, after about three years of bureaucratic wrangling that included letters to congressmen and others, permission was granted to bring the family over.
Chang and Myong An, his wife, and two of their children, Julie, then-5-years-old, and Tony, then-4-years-old, arrived in the United States in 1976.
Jackie, their other daughter, was born later.
An had a few jobs — McKinnon recalled the first one was repairing appliances — before he landed a job as a custodian at a local flower shop.
“Whatever he did, he excelled at,” Tony An said about his father. “He worked his way up and became the manager of the store, and that's where he learned about plants and got an appreciation for plants.”
Soon, An started his own plant maintenance and rental business, An's Plant Rental.
“He always worked hard,” McKinnon remembered. “He would go out and call on professional people to sell them or to rent them plants for their offices. Many of the doctors, lawyers knew him personally.”
Tony An said, “As it got bigger and bigger, our house became full of plants. It was like a jungle.”
An needed a larger location and came upon the Osuna Nursery site, which he bought from the previous owner, and expanded his business operations, his son said.
The “tiny,” half-acre lot with a greenhouse has since grown into a six-acre nursery and garden center.
“His mantra was, 'Whatever you do, be the best at it,' ” Tony An said. “He excelled at everything, anything he put his head to. He worked very hard.
“He had a very, very warm personality, great sense of humor, something that the customers appreciated, and he befriended many, many people over the years.”
Family and friends say An was generous in supporting the community, whether he was donating money for such things as public television, the symphony, land for a church to build on or — as a “great believer in education” — a Sandia Prep scholarship fund.
“As he prospered,” McKinnon said, “he would assist many causes in the city. Many people would go to him.”
“I was down at his nursery one day, and he was telling me about some business transaction, he had to honor something,” McKinnon said. “And I said, 'An, if you would treat this in this way — which is perfectly legal — you could get a tax write-off.' And he looked at me and he said, 'Mr. McKinnon, I love to pay taxes. I'm a citizen of the United States.'
“As an immigrant he let me know that he didn't want to get out of paying taxes.”
When An and his family were first set to arrive in Albuquerque, several of his boxes arrived in advance — boxes with a “distinct smell,” McKinnon said.
“It turns out they were dried fish with spices on them. It was a form of chile peppers he had on this fish,” McKinnon said. “When he arrived, I asked him about them. ... He said, 'When we were in Korea, we were told that the reason Americans were sad was that they didn't eat enough chile.'
“And I said, 'Mr. An, you'll have to realize you've come to New Mexico. We love chile here.' And he did learn that.”
An was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004.
A 10 a.m. memorial service for An will take place Saturday at Sandia Baptist Church, 9429 Constitution NE.
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