Mt. SAC alumna spearheads $10k giving program at her company to benefit her alma mater

Angela Zhu, far left, poses with her colleagues at SLM Group

Like so many alumni, Angela Zhu has decided to share her post-Mt. SAC success with the College that put her on the path to that success. She and her partners at SLM Warehousing Group, Inc. made giving back to the community as one of their core values. They knew they wanted to do a company giving program and when they were making a list of nonprofits to support, the Mt. SAC Foundation was an obvious choice. Not only is Zhu an alumna, but the company as a whole believes in higher education. “We strongly think that with higher education, human society will be better,” Zhu says. 

Zhu’s path to Mt. SAC and after is a common Mountie story, meaning that it is wholly unique, since no two Mounties are the same. She grew up in Shanghai, China and came to California when she was 17. She was attracted to Mt. SAC because of the low cost as compared to a four-year university. Mt. SAC’s reputation for quality meant she wouldn’t be sacrificing her education to save money and she would easily be able to transfer. At Mt. SAC, Zhu made lifelong friends in her ESL classes. She also studied business and eventually transferred to the University of Southern California. 

After college, Zhu worked in the accounting industry until her parents bought a trucking company and needed her help to run it. Her career in the trucking industry began to grow, and she merged with SLM in 2017 in order to expand her business. Today she is the Chief People Officer and West Regional Manager at SLM. She also runs a trucking business, Wakool Transport, on the side. Being a young woman in the trucking industry has not been easy. Zhu experienced a lack of respect from many of the people she worked with. “I had encountered a lot of difficult situations in the earlier years,” she says. However, “facing difficulties with sexism and ageism or any other challenges is never a reason to give up on something. One of the main attributes to success in anything is being persistent and never giving up easily.”

When it came time to choose which programs at Mt. SAC to support, Zhu worked with Foundation executive director Bill Lambert to identify the programs that would receive the gifts. First off, Zhu wanted to help STEM students who “want to change the world,” according to Lambert. Next she pointed to the Wassail choral concert, which she calls “one of the most amazing college singing programs,” and the international student center, where she met so many good friends and “to help people who are learning English and people who shared the same past” as Zhu herself.

The Foundation is thrilled to work with people like Zhu who are proud to be Mt. SAC alumni and are representing the College well in their lives and careers.