Liang Chow, Coach to Olympic Champs Gabby Douglas and Shawn Johnson, is Immigrant Spirit Award Winner

Liang Chow, who earned a reputation as the go-to coach of women’s gymnastics after coaching a pair of Olympic champions, will be honored next month at an Immigrant Entrepreneurs Summit in Des Moines.

A native of China, Chow will be honored with the Immigrant Spirit Award at the summit, the Des Moines Register reported. The event will be held Nov. 10 at Drake University.

Two-time London 2012 Olympics gold-medal winner Gabby Douglas and four-time Beijing 2008 Olympics medalist Shawn Johnson are Chow’s two best-known proteges, but city and state officials credit him as one of West Des Moines and Iowa’s shining economic development stars.

“I couldn’t be happier for Gabby and especially for Coach Chow, because he’s been here so long and bringing people here,” West Des Moines Mayor Steve Gaer said moments after Douglas won a gold medal in the women’s all-around and two days after the U.S. women’s team won gold – two monumental moments that give Chow and his gymnasts a permanent place in Olympic gymnastics history.

Since Johnson’s and then Douglas’s success, gymnasts have moved to West Des Moines to train with Chow. Chow and his wife, Liwen Zhuang, moved to West Des Moines in 1998 to open Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute. He emigrated to Iowa in 1991 to work on his Ph.D at the University of Iowa, where he became part of the men’s and women’s gymnastics coaching staff.

The Immigrant Entrepreneurs Summit is an annual event sponsored by Community Tax Clinic, a non-profit organization assisting minority, immigrant and disadvantaged taxpayers facing economic hardships and without the financial resources to deal with them, according to a Facebook page set up for the summit.

According to the Register, other honorees will include:

Clementine Msengi – Immigrant Leadership Award. Msengi fled Rwanda and settled in Cedar Falls, where she started the Bright Move Network, which helps immigrants from Africa become self-sufficient.

Tortilleria Sonora Inc. owner Betty Garcia – Outstanding Immigrant Business Award. The Des Moines company makes more than 25,000 tortillas a day using a family recipe.

Lawyer Kim Baer –  Karen Evans Immigrant Champion Award. This award honors a non-immigrant’s contributions to immigrants. Baer of Des Moines, who represents clients in medical malpractice claims, car accident litigation and wrongful death suits, has helped small- and medium-sized immigrant businesses, summit organizers told the Register.