OARacle Newsletter

OAR welcomed Sally Tran as business manager in April. Tran has more than 10 years of experience managing operations for small businesses and startups. Her goals are to increase OAR awareness by engaging with other organizations and companies to develop partnerships. “There are opportunities for fundraising that will ultimately help the autism community.” She also looks forward to putting her event planning experience to work for OAR.

“OAR is a small but mighty team working in a collaborative, supportive environment that naturally generates new ideas and ways to service the autism community,” Tran says. “Seeing that collaboration in action and the wider OAR community coming together at my first RUN event was inspirational.”

Her personal connection to autism drew her to the job. “My son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 18 months old. As first-time parents already juggling parenthood, we were then tasked with learning this new world and preparing our son for future successes. OAR’S mission to fund science-based applied autism research is exactly what families like mine need as they navigate the daily realities of ASD.”

Prior to coming to OAR, she was the director of operations at Nook, an indoor play space with three locations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In 2020, Tran and her team at Nook joined forces with New York City-based The Wonder, where she continued her role overseeing daily operations and management of the DC branches. In addition, she founded an online clothing rental company and led that business for two years.

Tran grew up in Virginia. She has a Bachelor of Science in economics from The Ohio State University.