The internet is such a crazy medium. It allows you to connect people, places, and times. Then, you have the ability to reconstruct them in meaningful ways. Each time I write a post on ATC, I think it will be my last. And every single time, I stumble across information that sends us deeper down the rabbit hole. Many times I will be pushed that way by a reader who has been doing their own research.
Such is the case with this article, as I believe it will give us more insight into the mind and past lives of one Dr./Professor/ President/Philosopher Abraham Hengyucius. The information arrived, just after I hit “post” for today’s article on ATC. Before we take the plunge, I need to say a huge “thank you” to the reader who tipped us off. I always had questions about Dr. Hengyucius’ academic pursuits, but could never find sufficient information to form a hypothesis as to why he entered the tire market.
So, here is the email. If he gives me permission to make his name public, I will do so in the near future.( Any comments I have added will be in bold. All reference links have been cleaned up, for ease of reading.):
Hi,I’ve been following the ATC saga myself, as my job has led me to stumble upon some tragicomic pieces of information on the epic Washington state project. Looking a bit deeper into it lately, I’ve found that another Pr. Hengyucius was active a few years ago as the chairman of the World Hongming Foundation, (Ed. note: Screenshot avl. by clicking here, just in case the site gets taken down) whose World Hongming Philosophical Quarterly (ISSN 1562-059X), as “an international scholarly periodical established to promote the study of global religions and philosophies”, “has attracted hundreds of thousands of global readers since 1999″. Yet another, perhaps unconnected (Ed. Note: This is, in fact, the same Pr. Hengyucius.) Pr. Hengyucius can also be traced on a Google group related to non-profit organization fundraising with an address in the city of El Monte – the same city found by courts to be home to ATC’s operations in the trademark infringement case recently lost against American Tire Distributors.
Moreover, the Aug. 8 message found on Pr. Hengyucius’s google group history advertises American Seashores International Inc for fundraising purposes (as far as I understand). A quick googling shows that this company has also chosen to base itself in El Monte. Interestingly, the said company also emerges in Tire Business’s report on ATC’s lost lawsuit.
Sadly, nearly all web links pointing to the Hongming Foundation and American Seashores seem to be broken.(Ed. Note: It would seem that Dr. Hengyucius wants to make sure his past associations remain a secret.)
Nevertheless, as a tire-related professional and Eastern philosophy enthusiast, I found those coincidences amusing, and thought you might find them of interest for another issue of the saga (in case you had not found them already).
Best wishes,
M. Doul
So, what exactly does this all mean? Well, now we have something to construct a backstory from. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go step-by-step through the circumstantial evidence presented by our reader.
- A Dr./Professor Hengyucius heads up a “…a tax-exempt, educational and research institution in the USA” according to the website linked to.
- In a Google group, he promotes a website (seashores.us) that was linked to American Seashores International. This company is coincidentally headed up by a Dr. Hengyucius as well. Evidently, at this time, American Seashores was importing smaller items that could be sold at fundraisers. (I’m thinking Oriental Trading Company type stuff.)
- Most links to the Hongming Foundation and American Seashore International are broken. Why?
So here’s my best guess as to what happened(please note that I said guess), at least insofar as current data is able to take us:
Abraham Hengyucius came here from the University of Sydney, and was a Professor of Eastern/Chinese Philosophy there. Based on his expertise in this area, and the publishing of more than a few scholarly works on those subjects, he chose to move to the USA to start a foundation that would pay for his study, and advance the study of philosophy. Since California is a hotbed for the study of Eastern/Asian philosophy, he was of the opinion that it would be no trouble to get financing for his foundation. Upon arrival, circa 2001-2002, he immediately filed for 501 c3 recognition of a non-profit which would become known as the World Hongming Foundation. He received this certification, and the company is still legally registered as a non-profit in the state of California.
(Click here for a link to his listing on irs.gov). Interestingly enough, although he claims to be President of the World Hongming Foundation, all of the tax returns for World Hongming list a “Dr. Hengyu Zhang” as President on form 990. This is the tax return that non-profits must file with the IRS. Did Dr. Hengyucius change his name upon entering the US as well? It would seem that he did not do so formally, as Dr. Zhang has been listed as President on every single tax return since the inception of the organization. You can find all of their returns by clicking on the year posted, all are in PDF. (2003 , 2004 , 2005 ,yet another 2005 , and 2007 .)
Hengyucius found it was harder to raise money for his foundation than he originally thought, as there were numerous other well-established non-profits advocating and publishing journals on Eastern Philosophy. His main competitors were departments of major universites like Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, and San Francisco State.
So, he started desperately trying to raise funds online, and attempted hiring professionals to do so (According to this thread, he did not understand the rules regarding such fundraising, and was unknowingly trying to do so in a method that is frowned upon in non-profit and professional fundraising circles.). He is only moderately successful, so he starts a for-profit corporation to offset his living expenses, and fund his non-profit, until such a time as he is able to get monies from other avenues.
American Seashores is more successful than he originally thought it would be. During this time, the OTR crisis raises its lovely head, and he sees an opportunity to import and sell tires: Chinese tires, to be exact. He makes a fair profit on them, until such a time as they fail miserably, and is sued.
Fearing American Seashores name will be damaged by the lawsuit, he changes the name of the company to American Tire Corporation( on paper, at least) and deletes seashores.us, hongming.us, and most of his other websites, including the journal that World Hongming published(it was whpq.org, this url no longer exists).
ATC continues to make money, somehow. When a large earthquake takes place in China, ATC makes a donation in the amount of $15,000 to World Hongming’s earthquake fund.(Petroleum News announcement, here). They use Hongming as a tax writeoff, as do many corporations. They just never disclose the fact that it is chaired by the president of ATC.
This brings us to the sad state of American Seashores International, ATC ,Washington Tire Corporation today, asking for investment money that they may never receive, for land and equipment they cannot afford. Even more pitiful are the delusionally optimistic statements of Abraham Hengyucius. He’s stuck, and is trying to frantically dig out of quicksand, as the heavens cave in above him.
Thanks again to our loyal, observant, and resourceful readers who make our jobs so worthwhile.
We’ll be back again soon, bringing you the latest in news and commentary for the consumption of the tire and mining industries.
Until then, we’ll be…
Signing off…
Related posts:
