Spirituality is the company name

[Guest guest]

Spirituality is the company name

 

Ramesh Wadhwani, president and chief executive officer of SAI Systems

International Inc. in Shelton.

Spirituality is the company name

By BOB ROZYCKI

Ramesh Wadhwani is a highly principled man.

He invokes spirituality in his personal and business dealings. While some people

wear their hearts on their sleeves, Wadhwani goes one step further; he pays

homage to his spiritual adviser and his philosophy in the name of his

information technology consulting and technology services company, SAI Systems

International Inc. Wadhwani said Sathya Sai Baba's basic philosophy is live and

let live.

Wadhwani's journey from Poona, India, to Shelton had a few bumps along the way.

But as he tells it, it all has been good for him and his family.

Wadhwani was born in Hyderabad Sind, when the British ruled India. The city is

now part of Pakistan. He would be the sixth son of seven boys in a family that

also has two girls. His parents moved the family to Poona when he was 6 months

old. He played soccer and cricket in high school and on community teams. He

received his undergraduate degree in engineering from Poona Engineering

College, the oldest school in the country. He received his master's degree in

electronic engineering from Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

In the fall of 1971, Wadhwani moved from India to St. Louis, to earn a doctorate

degree in biomedical engineering from Washington University. While pursuing his

degree, Wadhwani began working for a startup company by the name of Artronix

Inc., which was to become a pioneer in creating medical imaging systems. He

assisted in the research and development of a cardiac catheterization device.

He also was involved in nuclear medicine by helping in the calibration of

radiation for the treatment of cancer. He and the team of scientists had to

determine how to aim a cobalt beam at cancerous tissue in the body without

damaging the good tissue surrounding it. Using a plastic bag of water - the

body is 90 percent water - they were able to determine the proper angle and

intensity by taking into consideration a number of factors, including the

absorption coefficient of water and calibrate the beam for human use. He was

also part of the team that developed computed tomography or

Wadhwani said his software career started with Artronix; "applying software to

real-life problems." He left the firm in 1978 to join General Electric Co. in

Salem, Va., as a senior scientist involved in a project to develop programmable

controllers for everything from filling milk bottles at processing plants to oil

well drilling. Developing controls of sequential processes - automation -

involved microprocessor technology and timers that would sense light and

pressure. The project was a success, Wadhwani said, with the system being sold

to China Steel.

In November 1980, Wadhwani left GE to become a software systems manager with

ITT, which built an advanced research and development technology center in

Shelton. ITT was going to make state-of-the-art telephone control switches. "We

used to have 30 percent Ph.D.s, 40 percent master's and 10 percent bachelor's

working (at the R&D center). It was a rich mix of people in educational

backgrounds."

There were 1,200 people working at the site in 1986 when the division was sold

and moved to Paris. "To end it with a stroke of a pen was hard," Wadhwani said.

 

He prayed to his spiritual adviser for guidance. Sathya Sai Baba's basic values

are love, peace, truth, proper conduct, and nonviolence. Wadhwani began his

company in 1987 with six months of severance pay that he received from ITT.

The company began as a mail-order house, a "computer shop." It began with an

initial investment of $700 for an ad in Computer Shopper magazine. He and a

partner would sell IBM PC XT computers for $659. Orders started trickling in.

He placed an order with a Pennsylvania company, but it couldn't meet Wadhwani's

price. He then contacted a "firm" in San Diego. They took the money but didn't

deliver. Wadhwani was getting desperate. "I prayed to Sai. I told him we're not

cheating anyone. Please help." He received an advertising card in the mail from

a Los Angeles firm. He called and they said they could meet his price. Wadhwani

and his partner hopped a jet to California to meet the company owners and take a

look at their inventory to make sure they were legitimate. The two men then

traveled down to San Diego and found that the "company" that they sent the

money to was just "two kids" who didn't know what they were doing. They

refunded the money and Wadhwani returned to S

The company would grow to $6 million over the next couple years. It would also

expand. In 1989, Wadhwani created a joint venture in Hong Kong with JP

Technologies to create a distribution center for PC parts. A year later, he

established a joint venture with Technica House in Taiwan to create a footprint

PC. The small footprint PC is known as the Millennium. One customer of the PC is

Diebold, which uses it in its automated teller machines. It is also used in

camera security monitoring systems and to monitor highway traffic.

Growth continued for Wadhwani's company. The software business expanded to India

and later a firm in Venezuela marketed SAI System's IT services in South

America.

All the while, embodying the principles of Sai, Wadhwani focused on customer

relationship management. "Our duty is to serve the customer. To make them happy

is most important," he said. "A customer comes to us because someone else failed

them."

All 60 workers at SAI Systems are told to "dedicate 100 percent to a client."

And Wadhwani continues to dedicate himself, not just to the customers, but to

the community. One Saturday a month he works in a soup kitchen in Bridgeport,

just as he has for the past 20 years.

article sourced: http://www.fairfieldcbj.com/current_issue/090505foia.html

With Love & Light

Deepak

http://www.ssso.net

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram To All SAI DEVOUTEE's, It was heart ful to read and made me so very

happy, I wish we all can become wadhwani. May Sai make him more succesful to

serve. SAI RAM