New Richmond mourns loss of Hai Nguyen, man recovered from St. Croix River

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·3 min read

Hai Nguyen walked into the New Richmond Chamber of Commerce a few years ago and asked to be added to the email list for chamber events.

From then on, Nguyen rarely missed a chamber function. “Hai attended everything and appeared everywhere,” said Rob Kreibich, the chamber’s executive director. “If you didn’t know any better you would have thought he was running for office. He could have taught a master class on how to maximize chamber membership. He was just a joy to talk to.”

Nguyen’s schtick was always the same at networking events, Kreibich said. “Going around the room for introductions, he’d always say, ‘Hi, I’m Hai,’ and the crowd loved it,” he said. “We were like a second family to him because he liked people so much. He fed off people, and the chamber allowed him to do that.”

On Wednesday, law enforcement officials pulled Nguyen’s body from the St. Croix River in Hudson. Nguyen, whom law enforcement officers called a “vulnerable adult,” had been missing since March 3. He was 31.

“It is a devastating loss for our chamber and our community,” Kreibich said. “Hai was a popular figure in our community – bright and engaging. He was a unique person with this whole life ahead of him. He was just a very special guy. We grieve for – and with – his family. He will be greatly missed here in New Richmond.”

Nguyen’s family immigrated to Wisconsin from Vietnam when Nguyen was quite young, Kreibich said. Nguyen graduated from New Richmond High School in 2009 and went to Carleton College in Northfield, he said.

Nguyen spoke six languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish and Vietnamese, he said.

Nguyen had recently moved to River Falls, Wis., said Kreibich, who last saw Nguyen at a ribbon-cutting for a new women’s clothing store in New Richmond a few weeks before he disappeared.

“I think he was trying to find his way,” Kreibich said. “He was so smart, but I’m not sure he had a full time job. There was an innocence to Hai that you don’t see very often. He was a kid at heart. I don’t think he realized how much people loved him.”

Dozens of people left comments about Nguyen on the New Richmond Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page.

“He was always willing to help and make conversation,” Luke Freeman wrote. “He really did care about others.”

Hanli Banitz shared that Nguyen once offered to go on a Fun Fest carnival ride with her son because she was too squeamish. “Since then, Hai always stopped to say ‘Hello,’” she wrote. “He always remembered names and seemed sincerely interested in those around him.”

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People in New Richmond learned the news about Nguyen on Thursday – the same day of the memorial service for John Soderberg, the town’s “legendary banker and pillar of the community,” Kreibich said.

Soderberg, the longtime president and CEO of First National Community Bank in New Richmond, Wis., died March 13 at the Deerfield Gables Care Center in New Richmond of complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. He was 88.

“John was ‘Mr. New Richmond,’” Kreibich said. “It’s a double whammy for us having lost Hai, too.”

The Bakken-Young Funeral Home in New Richmond is handling arrangements.