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Two Indian Americans among Small
Business Persons of the Year

Ela Dutt
India Abroad Correspondent in Washington

Grit, staying power, and an aggressive strategy drove two of the pioneering Indian American entrepreneurs recognized this month by the United States Small Business Administration as Small Business Persons of the Year 2001. They were among the 53 selected by a tough nationwide peer review.

Himanshu Bhatia (38) will tell you she does not remember how she brought up two children and made Rose International, a technology consulting firm in Chesterfield, Missouri, grow from a five-person start-up in 1993 to 300 employees today with $30 million in revenues.

"It's a blur. I don't know," she laughed during an interview recalling the early days. She and her husband Gulab have two children, Sunny (10) and Sabina (8).

The New Delhi-born Bhatia came to the US in 1987, finished her master's degree in management information systems from the University of Missouri, St Louis, and plunged into business. In 2000, Deloitte & Touche listed her firm as the fastest-growing technology company.

Bhatia says, "Our quality of service, dedication, commitment to our customers and employees, and providing opportunities are key to our growth. We've got a lot of repeat business from Fortune 500 clients. And we have a very aggressive growth target and keep opening doors."

Prior to leading Rose International to national levels of success, she worked at Boeing Company, Electronic Data Systems and Edward Jones.

While building a successful business takes up most of her time, Bhatia is a community activist as well. She has served on the MIS advisory board and MIS mentoring programme at the University of Missouri, St Louis, giving lectures and advising students on career issues. As an SBA coach, she makes time to help other small-business owners get started on the right track. And she served on the President's Initiative on Race with other executives to help develop President Bill Clinton's report on race. She was recently named director of the Orange County purchasing council, an organization that promotes economic development in Orange County, California.

Durga Agrawal, president of Piping Technology & Products, Inc, in Houston, Texas, came to the US in 1968, started his machine tools factory in 1978, rode the tremendous ups and downs of the state's economy and the petrochemicals industry, diversified to save his company and employees, and came out riding a wave after the 1980s.

He has met President George Bush, Jr, twice in the space of the last 10 days, and has a book pasted on his site giving the account of his life coming from the village of Lakhanpur in Madhya Pradesh, India, to Houston, Texas.

"I learnt from my father that one has to be a team player. And it is very important to speak up and express your ideas to others, be open-minded, accepting ideas and willing to work together. And a sense of urgency is very important. I sincerely believe one can achieve any goal with hard work, persistence and determination," he said.

Agrawal saw in 1986 that the petrochemical industry was going down and immediately began to diversify. He tried becoming a distributor for IBM, but that did not work, so he began producing parts for wastewater treatment plants. "We kept going despite the layoffs going on in Houston. I began doing highway jobs, making anchor bolts, and finger joints for bridges." It is precisely his innovative spirit and unwillingness to abandon his employees that make Agrawal a different kind of entrepreneur in this day and age.

All of the 53 Small Business Persons of the Year maintained that despite the hard work, long hours, stress and anxiety that is part of starting and growing a small business, they would do it all over again.

"This is a testament to the rewards, both financial and personal, that come from owning a small business," said acting SBA administrator John Whitmore. The 'Class of 2001' winners came to DC earlier this month to receive their honours, meeting President George W Bush, among others.

In addition to sharing a conviction that starting a business was the right thing to do, the winners have another common bond -- each is technology-savvy and uses a personal computer in business. Seven of every eight businesses have an Internet Web page. Over half are involved in e-commerce.

The winners are selected in a rigorous nomination and nationwide review process involving all 70 SBA district offices. The nominees are judged by a panel of their peers in each state, and the review based upon their record of stability, growth in employment and sales, financial condition, innovation, response to adversity, and community service.

The winning businesses reveal a mix of products and services as diverse as American society and culture: a florist, an educational software developer, a car battery manufacturer, an amusement/theme park operator, a boxed chocolate manufacturer, a fitness club owner, a sapphire jewellery manufacturer, a custom iron works products designer, a tropical fish dealer, and a luxury linen manufacturer.

One of every four winners is in manufacturing; one of five is in a retail business. Nine per cent of the businesses are in computer technology, 7 per cent in construction and 17 per cent in some kind of professional service -- real estate, engineering, accounting or the like.

Women own 28 per cent of the winning businesses and 25 per cent are minority-owned -- 6 per cent by African Americans; 8 per cent by Hispanic Americans and 4 per cent by Asian Americans. Veterans own 17 per cent.

More than half of the winning businesses are owned and operated by families, and 28 per cent sell to the federal government. Their combined total sales to the federal government amount to $57 million for an average of 28 per cent of their total sales. The winning businesses have been in business for an average of 15 years and together employ close to 4,000 people.

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