From Tibet to Santa Fe.(Business)

Byline: J.K. Mills TRIBUNE REPORTER

Immigrant Tsewang Tenzin took a job as a janitor and wrung a new life from it. Today he is administrative hotel worker of the year, and he and his family are thriving.

An immigrant from India, Tsewang Tenzin, 44, has not seen his homeland of Tibet since he was 9 years old. That year, having fled to a refugee camp in India with his family, he embarked on the first of what would be several new beginnings.

In 1992, Tenzin left his wife, four children and teaching job in India to take a night-shift janitor position at the Inn of the Anasazi, a downtown Santa Fe hotel, and joined the ranks of hundreds of thousands of immigrants before him who saw not drudgery in such jobs, but opportunity.

In his four years at the Inn of the Anasazi, he rose from night janitor to day janitor, to clerk in purchasing and finally to general cashier in the accounting department, the position he now holds.

To top it off, …