nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 30, 2006

Cody and Cindy Ryu’s Allstate agency in Shoreline is decorated with awards they and their business have received over the years.

By Lee Bedard
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

Cindy Ryu has a career in mind that she might pursue — if she did not already have the equivalent of three jobs.

“I have always thought I might like to be an efficiency expert,” says the woman who manages her family’s Allstate Insurance office, serves on the Shoreline City Council and heads the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce.

Despite her own habits, Ryu believes firmly that people last longer if they can find a way to work only 40 hours a work.
“If you work 12 to 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week, you burn out faster,” she says.

Like many other first-generation Korean Americans, husband Cody Ryu has worked very long hours to establish the Allstate business. In fact, he worked so many hours in the 1980s that Cindy decided to quit her own job and join him. It was one way to understand her husband’s intensity — and to see him before nightfall.

Cindy claims she has it relatively easy now, thanks to full staffing at the Allstate office and an especially gifted employee at the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce, where she was forced to go from vice president to president in a short amount of time.

Cody is a first-generation Korean American, part of the large immigration of the 1970s. Cindy is “1.5,” part of the generation that was born in Korea but came to the United States so early as children that they are fully acclimated to the American culture.

The Ryus have been involved with helping others understand American ways. One of Cody’s early business projects was to establish the Drycleaners Special Program, which offers discounted rates to the many Korean Americans who are in that business. He also established a scholarship fund for Korean dry cleaners.

The couple has been nominated for the 2006 Asian American Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a program of the Northwest Asian Weekly Foundation.

The road to their success was a varied one for the Ryus. When Cody arrived in the U.S., he took whatever jobs he could find, from assembling mattresses to managing rental property. He was the first in his family to obtain a college degree in the U.S., from the University of Washington. He then went to work for Allstate before acquiring his own agency, located at 15020 Aurora Ave. N. in Shoreline.

Cindy’s parents were displaced from North Korea during the Korean War. With four children in a country largely destroyed, the family left to go overseas. Cindy’s journey took her through Brunei, where she lived among Malay and Chinese-speaking families. Her family arrived at Sea-Tac on Christmas Eve 1969, when the airport itself was new.

Her dream was to be a medical missionary. When she was not accepted to a medical school, she concentrated on business management, working for King County Medical Blue Shield as well as Seattle City Light and Seattle’s Department of Construction and Land Use.

But when Cody’s work kept him away from home, she made the fateful decision to join him, to become part of a family company that now combines business and community service.

“The office, though it is fully staffed for the insurance needs, has always been a place people know they can come for information on anything,” Cindy says.

For more information about Cody and Cindy Ryu’s Allstate Insurance agency, call 206-362-8828.

Lee Bedard can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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