A happy family voyage

James S.C. Chao (left) is recognized during his daughter Elaine Chao's confirmation hearing to become the next US secretary of transportation before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee along with her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (second from right), on Capitol Hill on Jan 11.[Photo/Agencies]

The Chaos are likely the most well-known Chinese immigrant family in the United States, and the shipping magnate tells Larry Lee in New York that raising "wonderful daughters" has been his greatest triumph.

James S.C. Chao is not a member of the Harvard Club New York. However, this fact doesn't prevent him from going there at all.

"My four daughters and two sons-in-law are members here," says Chao, proudly.Only alumni and faculty of Harvard are pre-qualified to apply for membership at the HCNY.

Four of Chao's six daughters graduated from Harvard Business School. The Chao family has donated more than $40 million to Harvard, where the executive education building was named after, in Harvard's words, the matriarch of this most prominent and accomplished Chinese-American family, the late Ruth Mulan Chu Chao.

On Jan 13 - one day after James Chao returned to New York after attending the senate confirmation hearing of his eldest daughter, Elaine L. Chao, as secretary of transportation - I invited James Chao to have lunch at this club. It was not easy for someone of his age to travel from the Big Apple to the capital of the country and sit in a hearing for almost four hours.

"We have a family tradition: One for all, and all for one," says James Chao.

James Chao is chairman of the Foremost Group, an international shipping, trade and finance company he founded in 1964. Headquartered in New York near the Harvard Club, with branch offices all over the world, the bulk fleet totals about 4 million dead-weight tons.