ESTABLISH MY CAREER

Author:JIM LIAO

I entered UCLA as a Economics Major. It did not excite me and I wasn’t that good at it but I discovered Asian American Studies. I did not know what I would do with it after UCLA but I loved it very much. It taught me about all the different Asian immigrant cultures in the US and about all their struggles. It helped me to understand the Taiwanese journey both at home and here in the US. When I was about to graduate, I could not find anything suited for me so I picked up the phone and called every company that I liked for internships. So I found a publishing company that specialized in cars and car culture offering an internship. That internship turned into my first full time job. I did marketing analysis, field marketing and sales.

In my almost 3 years there, I started going to a lot of events and networked with a lot of people in the industry. I was young and impatient, I thought I was bigger than the company so I left seek for something more. I ended up not having a job for 6 months but finally an opportunity with a company that operated drag racing events offered me a sales job. I worked there for 2 years. It taught me a lot about putting on events but also what to do and what not to do. I left that company to work for a bigger events company. There I learned event more about events and how to deal with bigger companies and about event marketing. Again, unfortunately I learned what not to do as a company.

During that time, I met my current business partner Ryan. We thought we should leave and start out our marketing agency to service the many companies that did not how to participate in events, like how to make their booth look nice or how to promote themselves. Soon we came upon the opportunity to bring a new sport called drifting from Japan to the US.

We brought the Japanese group to the US in 2003, the event was a great success and the American market wanted more drifting. The Japanese company we worked with did not want to commit to the US market and did not want to partner with us for the long term in the US. Because of that, we took a risk and launched our own drifting series.

In April 2004, we had our first event. Since that time we have conducted approximately 100 drifting competitions and demonstrations in 11 countries.

We are now the global leader in the sport. We have developed the most comprehensive safety regulations as well as the most comprehensive sporting rules. The Sport is very attractive due to it short duration and visually very exciting.

Of all the motor sports groups in the world, we have the largest portion of young (18-29) fans and we are most active online. For example on Facebook, only NASCAR and F1 (both very very big racing series) have more fans than us.

For me, I never thought my love for cars would turn into a real career and one that has been fruitful as well as taken me all over the world. But on top of that, I believe I can say that amongst most if not all of the top tier international motor sports disciplines, I am currently the only Taiwanese person as the head of the organization.

Again, I hate to talk about me me me but I feel really strongly about empowering our community and young people not just to seek their dreams but also to be open to those that do not choose and traditional career path. Our community can only grow in strength and depth if we have many different people doing many different things.

Jim Liaw |

President, Co-Founder

FORMULA DRIFT HOLDINGS, LLC

200 Pine Avenue, Suite 615

Long Beach, CA 90802

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