Fred Shaw (or Feng Hsiao, as he signs his checks) left the Chinese province of Shaanxi in 1944 to acquire a master’s degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1947, he started work at the University of Minnesota on his Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering.
Sixty years later, Shaw sits at the head of Shaw-Lundquist Associates in Eagan, the Midwest’s largest minority-owned contractor—though he lightheartedly shoos that accomplishment aside. “I don’t think they consider me a minority anymore,” he says.
It’s just that his company, established in 1974, has been so successful, it no longer encounters the sort of challenges many other minority-owned firms do. Shaw-Lundquist generated $80 million in revenue per project in 2005 and has a bonding capacity of about $200 million. That carries serious weight in the bidding process and testifies to the confidence the firm’s partners have in its work, whether it’s the remodeling of a $600,000 Cub Foods in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, or the construction of a $50 million agriculture center near the State Capitol.
Shaw says he got involved in professional and cultural societies that promote business opportunities, education, and support for Chinese-Americans in the late 1940s simply because “to get a job, you needed to be involved in things.” He has been a guiding force in support of business and education exchanges between Minnesota and China dating back to his service as president of the University of Minnesota Chinese American Students Association in 1950.
He’s also been a member of the Association of General Contractors since 1950, and received the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In addition, he was the founding director of both the Chinese Senior Citizens Association of Minnesota in 1962 and the Chinese American Association of Minnesota in 1967. In 1983, he became a founding member of the National Association of Minority Contractors and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2004.
Shaw has received Governor’s Certificates of Commendation for business leadership and for Chinese community leadership. He was the founding president of the Chinese American Business Association of Minnesota, and was an inaugural inductee into the Metropolitan Economic Development Association’s Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame.
But one of Shaw’s more notable achievements wasn’t something he received, but something he gave: his 2002 gift of $50,000 to the University of Minnesota China Center’s scholarship efforts. The China Center (headed by Hong Yang, the 2006 Immigrant Achievement Award winner) provides support programs, translation services, and other resources for students, scholars, and faculty. Asked why it was important to him to support the China Center, Shaw says with a smile, “So it could be more than a name.”
