Today, Hung serves as the Executive Director of Construction and Diocesan Ecclesiastical Properties for the Diocese of Saint Petersburg. He oversees construction projects, renovations, and facilities planning for the 74 parishes and 48 Catholic schools in the diocese. His work is more than assembling bricks and blueprints; every project he leads helps create spaces where people encounter Christ. He helps build churches where families celebrate the sacraments, schools where children are formed in the faith, and buildings that will serve Catholic communities for generations to come.

His vocation to serve began long before he worked for the Church. When Hung was three years old, his family fled Vietnam as boat refugees, leaving behind everything they had ever known in search of freedom and the hope of a better future. 

“We left in the middle of the night in a 15-foot rickshaw boat,” Hung recalled. 

Traveling with his parents and aunt, he was too young to understand the dangers they faced, but the journey would become one of the defining stories of his life.

Their escape was treacherous and risky. While crossing the sea, the family's boat was robbed multiple times by Thai pirates, which brought them dangerously close to death. Just when hope seemed to be slipping away, a shipping vessel spotted them and took them aboard. The rescue offered a chance of survival, but conditions remained dire. The boat was already overcrowded with hundreds of refugees enduring unimaginable conditions.

Through stories shared by his mother, Hung learned that many passengers were packed into the cargo hold, where survival was uncertain, and many did not make the journey. After arriving on an inhabited island in Indonesia, Hung’s family spent eleven months in a refugee camp waiting to learn whether another country would offer them a chance to begin again. Representatives from various nations interviewed refugee families to determine who would be accepted for resettlement. 

While they waited, each person was expected to contribute in some way to the refugee community. Hung’s family supported themselves by using the food rations provided by relief organizations to prepare meals they could sell to other refugees. 

“It was a way for us to meet some of our basic needs while we waited,” Hung said. “Everyone had to find a role.”

After eleven months the life-changing news arrived. A Catholic parish in rural Wisconsin had agreed to sponsor Hung’s family, opening the door to a new beginning in the United States. For Hung, the Catholic Church did more than just help his family immigrate; the Church welcomed them, supported them, and gave them a place to belong.

The family settled in Marshfield, Wisconsin, where they were one of only a few other Vietnamese families in the area. They worked hard to adapt to the new language, culture, and way of life after enduring the two-year migration to the United States. The Catholic community quickly became their new home.

Hung attended Catholic school from kindergarten through high school, where he experienced the investment the Church makes in forming young people. He watched his mother dedicate more than 35 years of her life to serving those in need through the local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and Community Center. Working in the community outreach center and assisting families facing hardship, and troubled youth sent over from the courts, she demonstrated that serving others was not simply something Christians did from time to time, it was a way of life.

As he continued to grow up, parish life became the center of his family life. Every Sunday, his family sat in the same pew at Mass at St. John the Baptist Parish. Holidays meant returning to church not only to worship but also to reconnect with neighbors and lifelong friends. 

“Church became the place where you caught up with old friends,” Hung said. “That’s what the Catholic Church always provided for us: a real sense of community and a place to reconnect.”

Those experiences gradually shaped his understanding of vocation. The Church had provided his family with stability, education, and belonging. He began asking God how he could use his own talents to give back. He discovered a passion for architecture and design, drawn by the opportunity to create spaces that strengthen communities and improve people’s lives. As a first-generation college student, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, earning a degree in architecture while also studying urban planning and art history.

While developing his professional skills in college, Hung also continued discerning the kind of life God was calling him to lead. 

“My mother had devoted her life to serving the community, my father was a naval officer serving his country, and I wanted to find out whether that was a calling for me as well,” he said. 

A conversation with a Peace Corps volunteer who had served in Mali proved to be a turning point in Hung’s life. As he listened to stories of their service abroad, he realized he had a desire to use his architectural training to help build structures that could improve lives in other countries. After graduation, he joined the Peace Corps and spent two years serving in Honduras, where he worked in urban planning and municipal development following the destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch. 

“The Peace Corps was a completely immersive experience,” Hung explained. “You lived alongside the people you were serving. It wasn’t a short-term mission trip where you came in for a weekend and left. You ate, slept, worked, and built relationships in the community every day for two years.”

One of his most meaningful projects was partnering with another volunteer to design a rural kindergarten for Plan International. The plans he created became a prototype used to construct seven schools across central Honduras, extending the impact of a single project to thousands of children across the country. Looking back, Hung recognizes that every chapter of his life was preparing him for something greater in God’s plan. 

“It always felt like my Catholic faith was a thread woven through my life’s journey, guiding me from one chapter to the next,” he said.

After completing his Peace Corps service, he continued working in construction and community development. His career took him back to Vietnam, where he managed hospital and high education projects for an international nonprofit, before returning to the United States to oversee facilities and construction projects for Hillsborough County Public Schools and later the Columbia Restaurant Group working side-by-side with fourth generation care-taker Richard Gonzmart. Each experience added another layer of expertise that would eventually prove invaluable when an opportunity opened within the Diocese of Saint Petersburg. 

“I felt like God was leading me in a direction to gather the skill sets He needed me to have for a bigger plan,” Hung said. 

When the chance to serve the Diocese arose, he recognized it as another moment of God's providence. After discerning it with his wife and praying for guidance; Hung accepted the calling.

Today, Hung approaches every project with a deep sense of stewardship. To him, his work is not simply about managing construction schedules or budgets; it is about helping parish communities create spaces that support the Church’s mission for decades to come. 

“We’re not just designing for today,” he said. “We’re designing for every future generation that comes through these doors.”

For Hung and his team, every church building tells a story. It is where children are baptized, couples exchange wedding vows, families gather to mourn loved ones, and countless people encounter Christ in the Eucharist. The buildings themselves become instruments of experiencing God’s presence, serving generations long after construction crews have gone.

Though his work in ministry is extremely important to him, Hung believes his primary vocation is within his own family. He and his wife, Nhung, who married in 2012 at St. Mary Our Lady of Grace in St. Petersburg, are raising two daughters and intentionally passing on the same faith traditions that shaped his childhood. The family is active at both St. Joseph Vietnamese Parish and Incarnation Parish in Tampa, where their daughters, Lanna and Lydia, participate in programs that foster faith while preserving Vietnamese language and culture. For the Phams, these experiences ensure that their daughters remain connected not only to their heritage but also to the Church that transformed their family’s life.

As he balances the vocation of serving the Church while also being a devoted husband and father, he refers back to what he tells his construction team: that true success requires balance. 

“I believe you need a balance of three things in life: a personal life, a spiritual life, and a work life,” he said. “When one of those three gets out of balance, the other two suffer.” 

This philosophy reflects the way he approaches every aspect of his life. Faith serves as the foundation that keeps everything else properly ordered, providing the moral compass needed to navigate challenges, make decisions, and lead others with integrity.

As he reflects on the journey that brought him from a refugee child fleeing the Vietnam War to a diocesan leader helping shape the future of the Church, Hung sees God's providence woven through every chapter. Today, through his work, his family, and his witness, Hung is living out a vocation rooted in gratitude. The Church welcomed his family, nurtured his faith, and helped him discover the gifts God had given him. 

Now, through stewardship and service, he is helping build up the same Church that helped build his life.