Kerry Eggers, Portland Tribune

So you think Rich Cho has traveled a long way to arrive at the general manager’s job with the Trail Blazers, beginning as an intern in the front office of the Seattle SuperSonics in 1995.

You don’t know the half of it.

Cho’s parents, Alan and Shirley, immigrated from Burma (now Myanmar) to Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1968, when Rich was 3. The move was sponsored by a Baptist church. The Chos were coming to the land of opportunity to make for a better life for their family.

It wasn’t easy. The Chos arrived in the U.S. with, as Rich describes it, “nothing.” Soon there were five children, four boys and a girl, living in a household subsidized by welfare.

After a move to Federal Way, Wash., Alan Cho worked for more than 15 years on the graveyard shift at a 7-Eleven in Kent. Later, he opened a store where he sold sports trading cards and comic books.

“Dad never made any money at it, though,” Rich says with a laugh. “He’d always give stuff away. He loved kids.”

Alan Cho died in 1995, when Rich was in law school at Pepperdine. By that time, Rich had an undergraduate degree in engineering at Washington State.

The Chos didn’t have money, but they had intelligence. Shirley earned a degree in math and chemistry at Indiana. Alan attended college in Kalamazoo, Mich. Rich’s siblings graduated from such schools as Duke and Washington.

“Luckily, my parents valued education,” says Rich, who turns 45 next month and is second-oldest of the children.

Cho has always looked ahead. His first job was as an engineer with Boeing.

“I liked it, but I felt like I didn’t want to do it the rest of my life,” he says. “I had a passion for sports, so I did some research and found out having a law degree might help me get somewhere.”

Perhaps, he thought, that could be in the legal sector of a pro sports league or team, or as a player agent. So he left Boeing for Pepperdine. His law degree includes an emphasis in sports law, contract negotiations and dispute resolution.

Cho wrote letters to a number of NBA executives, including Wally Walker of the hometown Sonics. Walker responded, interviewed Cho and offered him an intern position.

“Later, Wally told me, ‘That was the best letter I ever read,’ ” Cho says. “At the time, he told me his goal was to be the most technologically advanced GM in the league. I wanted to show that I could help make that happen. I put some stuff together and met with him, and I guess he liked it.”

During the next couple of years, Cho — with the help of two Microsoft programmers — helped design and implement a nontraditional player evaluation system integrating statistics, scouting information and contract details.

“This was before ‘Moneyball,’ before the Internet, before all the advanced metrics that a lot of the basketball and baseball teams have used in recent years,” Cho says.

It didn’t help the Sonics to an NBA championship, but it helped Cho’s stock as a valuable resource for the franchise. He became Seattle’s assistant GM in 2000 and, during the next decade, handled a smorgasbord of duties, including contracts and collective-bargaining agreement details, as well as player personnel evaluation. He did occasional college scouting and, once the franchise moved to Oklahoma City, oversaw operation of the Thunder’s D-League affiliate in Tulsa.

“Rich was like Tulsa’s general manager,” says Blazer strength/conditioning coach Bobby Medina, who worked with Cho in Seattle. “That shows me a lot. During the season, he was driving to Tulsa several times a month to see the D-League guys. He understands the importance of developing players.”

Cho’s predecessor, Kevin Pritchard, handled player evaluations and left most of the financial matters to his assistant, Tom Penn.

“Rich is really smart on the business side, too,” Medina says. “I love Kevin, but Rich is Tom Penn and Kevin Pritchard. He has a great relationship with a lot of agents, which will help us with potential free agents.”

Cho appreciates the sabermetric approach to assembling a team that Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane espouses, but he also employs the old-fashioned process through scouting at both the college and pro levels.

Sabermetrics “is just another aspect in the evaluation process,” Cho says. “I don’t count on it 100 percent. It’s good to use a lot of different tools.

“I want to bring a lot of those things to Portland. I’m not sure exactly what is used here now. I’m always looking to learn and see what others are using. Maybe what they’re using is better, or maybe we can take something from them and combine it with ours.”

Before accepting the Portland job, Cho asked owner Paul Allen and President Larry Miller about the circumstances surrounding the firing of Pritchard.

“When you’re on the outside looking in, you don’t know everything that’s going on,” Cho says. “When I met with Larry and Paul and saw their commitment to winning and what they’re all about, there was no question I was interested in the job.”

Cho pauses, then adds, “I know Kevin. I have a lot of respect for him. He did a good job here. Kevin is going to land on his feet in no time.”

Everyone describes Cho’s people skills as a huge asset. He comes across as understated and easygoing, as a person who thinks before he opens his mouth.

“I try to be a straight shooter,” he says. “Whether it’s with employees or upper management, I try to be myself and to be honest. Hopefully that resonates.”

Unlike a former Portland GM from Seattle, Cho will become a part of the community.

“It didn’t even cross my mind to live anywhere else,” he says. “I want to live close to the practice facility — probably in Tualatin, Lake Oswego or West Linn.”

He is a Northwest native and a Northwest kind of guy.

“We are different from people in other areas of the country,” he says. “I’ve lived up and down the West Coast, in the Midwest, on the East coast. We’re an area with a lot of diversity. It’s a great area for the outdoors. People are friendly. It’s not as fast-paced as the East Coast. When I’ve been back there, people seem to be in a hurry. For a lot of reasons, we’re living in the best place in the country.”

Cho will soon be looking for a couple of things in Portland — a tennis club and a Burmese restaurant.

A 4.5-level tennis player who was on the first doubles team in Decatur High (Federal Way) history to make it to the state tournament as a senior, he’ll probably have to miss his U.S. Tennis Association team’s zone championships in Oklahoma City this weekend. He has a little business at hand in Portland.

Cho loves Burmese food, which he describes as a “cross between Thai, Chinese and Indian.” His favorite spot is the Burma Superstar Restaurant in San Francisco. A female cook in Los Angeles sends Burmese food to his home through Federal Express every couple of months.

Time will tell if Cho becomes a good general manager. He has a good support system around him, with Chad Buchanan and Mike Born as his scouting directors and Nate McMillan — with whom he worked alongside for a decade with the Sonics — as coach. He has an owner who is committed to winning.

We know for sure Cho has come a long way to get to where he is. There’s a lot to be said for that.