SFFB Burmese immigrant invests in his neighbors

Aug 25, 2008 (The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- SFFB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The market is still modest, but when a man can make a living selling financial services to his fellow Burmese immigrants, it counts as a milestone on the journey from refugees to settled residents.
That's what Thiha Kyi, 53, has been doing since February as a sales agent for Western & Southern Financial Services in Fort Wayne.

"As new agents, we get to go to our personal markets. My Burmese community is my personal market," said Kyi, who is more widely known as "Ty." Most of the 4,000 to 5,000 Burmese immigrants in Fort Wayne, even those who were professionals or had college educations before leaving their native country, earn modest incomes. Kyi said many work in factories or slaughterhouses. Hundreds of women who sewed for Vera Bradley suppliers lost their jobs recently. Some women find work as cooks or servers.

Another obstacle is the absence of many traditional financial services in Burma. Most Burmese know little or nothing about retirement savings, insurance, home mortgages or interest rates.

So when Kyi makes sales, they are most often small term-life insurance policies, among the least expensive products Western & Southern offers. But Tom Strain, sales manager for the company's Fort Wayne office, said he couldn't be happier with Kyi's progress.

"He's a sales rep, but he's so much more than that," Strain said. "Ty is like an elder in the community. ... When he's not working, he's at the temple or raising money for flood victims." Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, also known as Myanmar, in May _ killing up to 130,000.

Employing a well-respected, well-educated member of an immigrant community gives the company unparalleled access to thousands of people who are beginning to have a little more money to invest.

That's why when Kyi arranges a visit to a Burmese household, it's not the usual meet-the-insurance-agent sales call. Instead, neighbors crowd in to hear him speak, so much so that eight or 10 pack a small room to hear him explain how Western & Southern can help them retire or save money to send children to college.

Those are common-enough goals for investors, but some Burmese have motives for purchasing insurance that would seem unusual to most customers. Strain said he's been surprised at how many single Burmese, without any dependents, purchase life insurance. Should they die, they don't want to create a financial burden for Burmese who would pool money to pay for funeral arrangements.

"They're protecting their community," Strain said.

That's a motivation Kyi can understand. For most of the last 30 years, he's worked to help Burmese people _ first as a dentist in Burma who became an opponent of the ruling military government, then as an early arrival in the wave of Burmese immigration to Fort Wayne.

Because both his parents were on the faculty of a Burmese university, and because he was well-educated (and could speak English), he was better equipped to move into higher-paying jobs than most new arrivals from his country. Soon after he came to Fort Wayne, he enrolled in a dental-technology program at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, but reflecting on his country's history led him on a different course.

"My country became poor because of economic mismanagement," Kyi said. "What is management? If I go back to my country to rebuild, I need to know how to manage," he said.

He earned a master of business administration degree in 2000 and moved up through the ranks of supervisory jobs in various restaurants. But those hours were unpredictable. He began to see how much those wildly shifting work hours cut into time he could devote to helping other Burmese and protesting the actions of Burma's totalitarian government. Working against that government became a freshly urgent necessity after military leaders suppressed a nonviolent protest movement organized around Buddhist monks.

That's when he shifted to financial planning.

Since then, he's found satisfaction in showing fellow Burmese how they can improve their lives with financial planning.

"I've been going house to house," Kyi said. "I tell them, 'You don't have to buy something from me, but you have to learn about this."'

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