Bao Nguyen is the Mayor of the City of Garden Grove. He is also the first Vietnamese Democratic mayor in the United States and the first directly elected openly gay mayor in Orange County. Prior to his election in 2014, he served, by appointment in 2011, then by election in 2012, as trustee of the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education, including a term as Vice-President. In 2014, Mayor Nguyen was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Orange County Fair Board of Directors, California 32nd District Agricultural Association. The Mayor has also served as a Commissioner of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.

Born in a UN refugee camp, the Mayor arrived at the United States at three months of age. He attended Garden Grove High School and graduated from Pacifica High School in 1998. Mayor Nguyen won the Most Spirited Award from his graduating class at Pacifica.

While earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, Nguyen interned for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, under Executive Order 13125 in Rockville, Maryland.

Mayor Nguyen holds a Master’s Degree in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado and a certification in mediation from the Dispute Resolution Program of the Orange County Human Relations Commission. He also completed an intensive Spanish immersion program at Universidad Internacional in Cuernavaca, Morelos in Mexico.