Cheap Marc Jacobs Hobo launching his own high

Southern Louisiana became his home. Kuo graduated with a degree in business administration and accounting, married a woman from Taiwan, became a U.S. citizen and settled with his wife in Houma, La., where he set about becoming a successful entrepreneur. He ran a tennis club, taught Chinese cooking lessons and oversaw the restaurant at the Houma country club before Cheap Marc Jacobs Hobo launching his own high-end Chinese eatery -- "Mr. Tai's" -- in New Orleans.
The late 1980s saw his circle of connections widen. With China growing more open to foreign investments, Kuo started a business working to market American expertise and products there. He teamed with a Louisiana legislator to sell cotton, promoted oil service companies for exploration work in the South China Sea, provided engineers for the development of Chinese plants.
"He was the matchmaker," says David Crais, former chairman of the Louisiana Imports and Exports Trust Authority, to which Kuo was appointed in 1992. "He was a wheeler-dealer kind of guy who had major contacts. He was tapped into everybody."
Crais recalls Kuo promising potential clients, "I'll get you in China," and he knew how to do it.
"He used to say there's a billion people, but there's a very small group that runs the whole show. If you tapped into the power networks, that's where you got business done."