The Evergreen Story
As a family business, Evergreen’s story began with a Chinese girl’s American dream. 24 years ago, Ting Xu (who became my wife later on) came to the States to study Computer Science at Old Dominion University in Virginia, with only $600 on hand. After receiving a master's degree in 1989, she went to work for the Virginia State Health department as a computer programmer. In 1991, with the goal of helping her parents to have a second career after coming to the U.S., the three started Evergreen Enterprises, Inc. in their two-car garage in Richmond's west end.
In the last two decades, I’ve been honored to have grown Evergreen from our Virginian garage to a major player in the gift and home decor industry. Through four strategic M&As from 1996-2009, we established ourselves as a leading design house, wholesaler, manufacturer and importer by serving 20,000 mom-and-pop stores and 200+ key accounts nationwide. This is an American dream realized through our hard work, business savviness and contribution to the community. Ting and I have been awarded Woman of the Year and Ernest & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Virginia. In 2004, a Virginia business delegation led by Governor Warner toured our Ningbo facility and proclaimed it as a new Virginia international business model.
We made great efforts to make Evergreen products above and beyond quality standards. Most of them have been voted by retailers and industry watchdogs as top products. Virginia is what we call home and Evergreen just happened to be owned by a couple who are from China. But our leadership style and culture is still that of a mainstream American company.
Frank Qiu
CEO of Evergreen Enterprises, Inc.
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