Khánh and his family immigrated to the USA from Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam conflict. Khánh graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a degree in chemical engineering and 3 minors. He worked for Amoco after graduation as a production engineer. He subsequently went to work for the family businesses: Asian grocery and real estate. He helped grow the family business to become the largest Asian grocer in the region. After selling the retail business, Khánh continued to work in real estate.

Khánh enjoys spending time with his wife, Uyển, and 4 children: Thiên Ân “JP”, Thiên Sơn “Vincent”, Thiên Hải “Dominic” & Thiên Hà “Teresa”. His hobbies include youth ministry, volleyball and being a foodie.

His passion for helping young adults and fondness for Mines led him back to accepting the position as the fourth Director of the Multi-cultural Engineering Program (MEP), which Khánh was part of MEP's inception in 1989 as a student and was instrumental in the founding of the Asian Student Association in the early 90's, which later became PASES (Professional Asian Society of Engineers and Scientists), eventually merged with SASE. As a Society of Asian Scientists & Engineers (SASE) volunteer, Khánh helped plan the 2011 National Conference. Khánh joined SASE full time as the Executive Director in late 2011. Khánh oversaw the doubling of the collegiate chapters and tripling its membership during his 1st year tenure with SASE. SASE has become the largest professional Asian American Organization in the US by numbers of chapters, conference size and organizational support. He looks forward to growing SASE to its full potential.