504 loan leads to smoother sailing.

• Author: Duan, Mary
• Position: FROM BEGINNERS TO BIGSHOTS - John Le of Seafood Connection Inc. - Occupation overview

Any business owner can tell you a story of how he climbed the ladder or made the leap from employee to employer. Few of those stories can compare to that of John Le, owner of seafood importer Seafood Connection Inc. in San Jose, Calif.

In 1979 at age 17, Le and his father boarded a boat with nearly 3,000 other people to flee their native Vietnam. Refused by Indonesia, the boat traveled on to another island ("I don't know how to translate the name of it into English," Le said.) and was refused again when it tried to land.

Le and his father jumped into the harbor and tried to swim for shore. Police scooped them up and put them back on the boat, which then traveled to the Philippines. While the Philippine government refused to let the passengers disembark, it did allow the boat to stay in the harbor and provided passengers with food.

Nine months later, they were allowed off the boat. A year later, by the time Le made it to California, where his mother, sister and brother had emigrated, he was too old to go to high school and knew no English.

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Now, 28 years later, after he went to community college, learned English, trained as a welder, washed dishes, hustled boxes in warehouses and drove delivery trucks, Le's greatest concern is finding salespeople to help him grow Seafood Connection, the import business he founded in 2001.

He's still shy about his English, which while accented is nearly perfect. Le, who has symbols of his heritage all over his office, is philosophical about his chances of growing revenue from $43 million to $100 million.

"In this business, if you work hard and keep growing, it will only grow, unless you destroy it yourself," he said.

The last company Le worked for imported meat and veal from Australia. Le started as a driver and eventually worked his way into sales and purchasing. The company wanted to enter the seafood arena and asked Le to find suppliers in Thailand, Vietnam and China, and manage the unit with the understanding he needed to reach a 10 percent net profit.

"The third year the economy was down and I only made a 7 percent net profit," Le said. "So while that businesses ended, my suppliers said, 'We will support you.' I had a lot of connections and I started thinking about doing it on my own."

When he started Seafood Connection, Le rented freezer space from a customer. He outgrew the 500 square feet within six months and had to rent 9,000 square feet. When that freezer space ran out within...