Dreamers: Positive Thinkers

Andrew and Peggy Cherng, owners of the wildly successful Panda Express fast-food chain.

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Growing Professionally and Personally

By all accounts, Panda Express, the Chinese restaurant chain, shouldn’t exist, let alone be a smash hit. After all, it’s hard to eat Chinese food while driving down the freeway. And preparing Orange Chicken is a lot more complicated than stacking preshaped burger patties under a heat lamp. Competitors have tried and failed in quick order.

Still, the privately held billion-dollar company, headed by Andrew Cherng and wife Peggy, has 1,010 restaurants in 36 states, Puerto Rico and Japan. When asked how he built the business, though, Andrew doesn’t talk about strategic five-year plans. Rather, he speaks humbly about the development of his employees.

He tells of the Hispanic man who started out washing dishes and spoke no English. “Today,” says Andrew proudly, “he is one of our most successful regional chefs. Not only is he doing a good job, but his daughter is in the honors program at school and his son is doing really well too. To me, that’s what Panda is about. Employees who are growing, professionally and personally.”

The Panda empire began in 1973, when Andrew, who was born in Jiangsu, China, and his father, a master chef, opened Panda Inn, a sit-down restaurant in Pasadena, California, serving family recipes and the freshest ingredients, fast and hot.

Andrew’s father had taught him to take on a new challenge only after mastering the previous one. It took ten years before Andrew felt he was ready to tackle the all-American challenge: the fast-food industry.

The first Panda Express opened in a Southern California mall in 1983. As Pandas began to proliferate, Peggy, who has a PhD in electrical engineering, gave up her career as a designer of logistics systems to join the company full-time, first as president, then as CEO. Today, Peggy and Andrew share the title of chairman.

They also share a leadership philosophy that flies in the face of conventional management strategy. “There’s a lot of training about how to work with your head,” says Andrew. “But there’s not much about how to work with your heart, and I think that’s even more important.”

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As a nurse in a maternity unit, I've had to answer all kinds of questions from patients and their families. I couldn't help but notice that one expectant father seemed particularly interested in the electronic fetal monitor. "Would it hurt anything if I just turned this dial up and down from time to time?" he asked.

"No," I answered, "but why would you want to do that?"

Smiling wistfully, the dad explained, "I know from experience it's the only time in a child's life I'll be able to control the volume."

-- Carol Plants

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