Throughout his time at Cal Poly, Randy Tran wasn’t overly concerned about maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade point average – until he received an email notifying him that he was this year’s Academic Excellence winner at the Orfalea College of Business.

The announcement came before the final quarter had ended, and Tran had one particularly challenging class that threatened his streak of A’s.

“Nervous wasn’t the right word, but I was, like, ‘This class could be the end of the 4.0,'” he said.

The Academic Excellence Award in the college is granted each year to the student with the highest GPA, but participation in special projects or research is also considered.

Fortunately, the economics major has worked hard to maintain that academic perfection – in addition to leading the economics club, conducting research and serving as a teaching assistant while helping with a nonprofit that provides students financial support for college.

“The work ethic that I got from my parents is probably the biggest advantage that I’ve had,” Tran said.

Tran, who concentrated in quantitative analysis, grew up in San Jose. Before he was born, his parents immigrated from Vietnam, leaving behind everything they had built: his father’s thriving auto repair business, his mother’s successful career, and the friends, family and life they had known their whole lives.

“They gave that all up so that my siblings and I could have the opportunity to grow up in America,” Tran said. “I don’t know how I could ever repay that, so that’s a big reason I work hard.”

His father now owns US Touch Up Auto Body in San Jose, where Tran worked as a customer service representative one summer. In high school, Tran was interested in engineering and robotics. But he eventually chose to study economics, which appealed to his love of math and statistics.

That passion helped him succeed as a student.

“I was lucky that it was something I thoroughly enjoyed and I was good at,” he said.

His enthusiasm for the subject was obvious to his professors.

“Randy was one of those students who made teaching fun,” said Ani Ghosh, assistant professor in the economics area. “He was consistently in the top equivalence class of my students.”

Tran helped other students as Ghosh’s teaching assistant.

“Students trusted him, he explained things clearly, and he was always going the extra mile to help,” Ghosh said. “Just as importantly, he is a genuinely great person: thoughtful, dependable, easy to work with and always positive. I have no doubt that his intelligence, work ethic and ability to connect with people will serve him extremely well wherever his career takes him.”

As president of the Econ Society, Tran helped bring topical, relevant speakers to the club, helping boost attendance. One of those speakers was Joseph Kuehn, associate professor of economics, who also mentored Tran during his Summer Undergraduate Research Program project.

Tran’s project explored NBA players, trying to assess when players reached their prime and how that differed by player position.

“I love basketball, so I was definitely into it,” said Tran, who noted the value of experience in shaping a player’s prime years. 

Kuehn, whose research on the NBA has been cited by multiple major sports outlets, said Tran used machine learning in his research.

“I was really impressed by his ingenuity in using tools that he hadn’t been exposed to yet in class but fit the research question,” he said. “The resulting project showcased a lot of what makes Randy special, his curiosity and creativity to figure out thoughtful ways to use data to answer interesting questions.”  

In addition to performing research with Kuehn, Tran took two of his classes and served as a teaching assistant. 

“He was one of the most diligent students I’ve had at Cal Poly,” Kuehn said. “And then, I’ve really enjoyed working with him as a researcher.  I’ve especially enjoyed talking NBA basketball with him and thinking about different ways we can use the data to better understand the game and how to evaluate players.  He brings a real curiosity to his work, and you can see that shine through in the thoughtful, analytic research that he does.”

Outside of school, Tran is a founding member of and chief information officer at ChallengeUS, a nonprofit his brother co-founded to increase youth civic engagement through running global competitions for students to tackle real-world issues and earn scholarship prizes.

For Tran, working with the nonprofit was a way to “pay it forward” after his parents prioritized his future.

“We’ve reached over 1,900 students in over 100 countries,” he said. “It has definitely been great, and we’ve been so blessed to have the impact we have had.”

Earning the Academic Excellence Award and graduating from Cal Poly are just a couple of major events in Tran’s life right now: He accepted a job as a reinsurance broker with Gallagher in Walnut Creek, and he just proposed to his girlfriend, who is graduating from Cal Poly with a biology degree, surprising her at the end of a custom-made escape room. (She said yes.)

“We actually went to the same elementary school,” he said. “We started talking in the  beginning of our sophomore year in high school.”

Some of his favorite memories from Cal Poly including hanging out in empty classrooms with friends, talking about life. 

“I feel like I grew closer to people from those things,” he said. 

The Orfalea College of Business also honored Ketzali Maciel-Jimenez for Service to the Community, Hailey Dang for Service to the University and James Tran for Service to the College.

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