The Asian American Chambers of Commerce of Tampa Bay will host the presentation on the report to the President from the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The panelists include Joseph Melookaran, former commissioner of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs and author of the report; Rudy Pamintuan, former chairman of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs and chairman of the United States Asian Center; and Jimmy Lee, former executive director of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs and managing director of the U.S. Asian Business Council.

The AACC is comprised of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Tampa Bay, Tampa’s Indo-US Chamber of Commerce, the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce, and other business professionals.

The event is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. on Nov. 14 at the Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore Hotel at 2225 N. Lois Ave. in Tampa.

More information is available online.

The long-anticipated wait for the Diwali Nights fundraiser is nearing an end. The event, which kicks off the Kamla Project, is set for the evening of Oct. 27. The Kamla Project is a collaboration initiated between Voices for Children, and Rahul Mehra, a board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist who has been practicing in Tampa for the last 15 years. Voices for Children is a local organization that appoints a community volunteer to become the “voice” for a child in foster care. The Kamla Project is named in honor and remembrance of Mehra’s late mother, Kamla Kapur Mehra. “Her dedication, passion and love for children has been a lifelong inspiration for me,” said Mehra.The mission of the project is threefold. First, provide free one-time psychiatric evaluation services to foster children and foster parents. The specific goal of such evaluations is to significantly shorten the time for finalization of adoptions for the children. Second, the Kamla Project will provide training and resource to the Guardian ad Litem Program in Hillsborough County. Lastly, it looks to promote public awareness in partnership with Voices for Children for the special needs of children in foster care. The Diwali Nights fundraiser is set at 7 p.m. and is open to anyone. The honorary chairman is Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. For information, visit http://www.kamlaproject.orgAakash M. Patel is secretary of the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee and has been a Khaas Baat contributor since 2005. He can be reached at Aakash.M.Patel@gmail.com

	NorthStar’s Personal Banker Vinita Mehra poses with Directors Paresh Patel, left, and Dr. Kiran C. Patel at the bank’s grand opening recently. Photo by Aakash Patel

Exactly one year after filing with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation to become an official bank, NorthStar Bank opened its doors to the Tampa Bay community. More than 400 people attended the grand opening celebration held recently at the company’s first office and headquarters inside the cylindrical Rivergate Tower in downtown. While NorthStar is among a dozen startup banks to open in the area since 2005, it is unique because of its ties to the Indian community. Philanthropist Dr. Kiran Patel is the company’s largest individual shareholder and Paresh Patel (no relation) is one of the main organizers of NorthStar. Both are among the 10 founding Board of Directors.”We wanted a community bank owned by local investors for Tampa Bay businesses,” said Paresh Patel in an interview with Khaas Baat. “Marty Traber (also a Board member) and I first discussed the idea in 2004 at an Indo-US Chamber of Commerce meeting (www.indo-us.org) Tampa Bay has a vibrant business community especially amongst Indians, yet we are just a number to the big banks. Why not instead bank somewhere where you are valued as a customer? After much discussion with other community leaders, we felt that time for our opening was now.”In keeping with the community owned spirit the bank has over 100 individual shareholders from in an around Tampa Bay with over 25 percent being Indians. Investors in the bank include a variety of professions such as pharmacists, engineers, doctors and businessmen. According to Patel, NorthStar’s goal is to provide financial services for small to mid-sized businesses and their owners, executives and employees, as well as consumers in general. Aakash M. Patel is secretary of the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee and has been a Khaas Baat contributor since 2005. He can be reached at Aakash.M.Patel@gmail.com

Emerge Tampa, the Chamber of Commerce’s young professionals branch launched in 2004 to spruce up Tampa’s sometimes unhip image, unveiled its third generation of leaders on Wednesday: Candace Cusseaux, an associate at Cushman & Wakefield, and Pradeep Vanguri, an instructor at the University of South Florida, will take the reins in January as Emerge co-chairs for 2008. Cusseaux, 26, a 2003 graduate of Florida State, works in commercial real estate and is involved with civic organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs. Vanguri, 30, a member of the INDO-US Chamber of Commerce, is an assistant professor and program director in USF’s athletic training education program. He graduated in 1998 from East Carolina University, then earned a master’s at N.C. State and a doctorate in instructional technology from the University of Alabama. They will replace Mark Colvenbach, 34, and Nicole Levin, 27, who complete a two-year stint as co-chairs.

Cypress Gardens sale in works

LandSouth Holdings LLC, a Mulberry real estate investment firm, is on the threshold of buying Cypress Gardens for $16.8-million. The firm, which reportedly is signing Cypress Gardens owner Kent Buescher to run the place, is the lone bidder in an auction for the Winter Haven park to raise cash to settle with creditors and help lift Buescher’s Adventure Parks Group LLC out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A judge in Georgia is being asked to rule today on whether to hand the keys to Florida’s oldest theme park over to LandSouth and sell Buescher’s other park, Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Ga., for $34.5-million to Hershend Family Entertainment. Hershend owns several amusement parks including Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo., and Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. A committee of unsecured creditors is fighting the sale. The creditors argue the proceeds are $76-million short of paying off the debts. An expert valued the parks at $101-million and Buescher’s links to the winning bidder had not been disclosed.

[Last modified September 26, 2007, 23:30:26]

By AAKASH M. PATEL

Louisiana gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal made a brief stop in St. Petersburg on Sept. 20, just one month before his election. Jindal, the only Indian-American in Congress, attended a fundraiser at the home of Dr. Akshay and Seema Desai in St. Petersburg. Also in attendance to give his endorsement was Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Congressman Jindal is considered to be the front runner in the Louisiana governor’s race. Now 36 and making his second bid for the governorship, Jindal is hoping voters see him more as a hard-working team player. To date, Jindal’s overall campaign contributions total more than $10 million with $105,000 being raised at Desai’s fundraiser.“I know how he feels just one month before an election,” Gov. Crist told the audience in his introduction speech. “It’s tough, but Bobby, you will be the next Governor of Louisiana.”During Jindal’s remarks, he thanked all 75 attendees and spoke about his election. If he gets 50 percent of the vote on Oct. 20, he wins the election, but anything less and a runoff will take place Nov. 17. “Florida is Louisiana’s sister state, and we’ve dealt with a lot of the same issues.” “I’ve got a 100 point plan that will benefit the citizens of Louisiana,” said Jindal.

By CAROL GENTRY The Tampa Tribune
Published: Jul 30, 2007

TAMPA – A decade ago, Cynthia Smith had five children and a high school diploma but no skills, scraping by on welfare and food stamps in Okeechobee.

Today, she’s a systems analyst for Tampa General Hospital, having worked her way up from a clerical job there in 1998. She was promoted a year ago from database specialist, she said, winning a pay boost to $43,000 from $29,000.

“I’ve been blessed,” she says modestly. But, she adds, “I was willing to learn anything and everything to get to where I am.”

Taking night classes, she earned an associate’s degree in computer science and plugged on. Now she lacks 10 classes for a bachelor’s and owns a home in Palm River near Brandon.

“I fell in love with computers,” says Smith, who had never heard of a computer mouse when she applied for aid to go to school. “It’s so much fun!”

The Bureau of Labor and private-sector employers say this country needs more Cynthia Smiths. Health information management, sometimes still called health information technology, is one of the fastest-growing fields around.

Efforts to computerize medicine have been going on for decades, but the field has lagged behind other industries. President Bush has declared the development of an electronic health network by 2010 a national priority.

Health information management careerists say they are a breed distinct from the software engineers and technicians who write computer code and keep networks running. Claire Dixon-Lee, vice president for education at the American Health Information Management Association, says her members serve as a bridge between information technology workers and health care professionals.

Her favorite analogy involves a water pipe.

“IT folks maintain the pipes, but we have to make sure the water is pure going through them,” she says.

The Bureau of Labor forecast in 2001 that the health information work force would grow by 49 percent by 2010. Two- and four-year health information management college programs are turning out about 3,000 graduates a year, only half as many as needed, Dixon-Lee says.

Meanwhile, some medical, nursing and public health schools are starting “informatics” programs as specialties or offshoots of the professional disciplines.

Because of the shortage, some companies that develop electronic health records are recruiting doctors, nurses and administrative staff from hospitals, health plans and medical offices – people who know the quirks of the U.S. health care system, patient flow, jargon and billing codes.

Not just any techie can build electronic medical records and networks that work in health care, employers say, because health care is even more complex than computer technology.

“Understanding the industry is key,” says Jason Patchen, chief executive officer of Visionary Medical Systems. “They’ve seen a million charts, and they know the work flow.”

Patchen says he would much rather teach information technology to a health care worker than explain the health system to a coder or network manager. He’s a living example; he gravitated to health IT from running health plans and medical groups, as did Visionary’s chairman, cardiologist Kiran Patel, who founded and sold WellCare Health Plans of Tampa in 2002. Patel’s son Shilen is president of Visionary.

Visionary, chief subsidiary of American Healthcare Holdings of Tampa, employs 68 at its Tampa base and more than 200 in Maryland, Miami and India, Patchen said. The cubicle farm at the Visionary offices off West Shore Boulevard mixes nurses and other health professionals with technical experts who have no background in the health field, and they help one another.

A health worker with no technical background would be hired at $50,000 to $60,000, he said. A nurse who walks in with some programming or technology background can start at $70,000 or more, he said, and a seasoned clinician with a technology background can make more than $100,000.

“We never stop hiring or looking for the best people,” Patchen says. “They are our most important asset.”

Subhead

Mary Anne Brunelli was the ideal hire for Visionary: She was a software engineer in the 1980s and became a nurse in the mid-1990s because she missed contact with people. “I’m not a sit-in-front-of-the-computer type,” she said.

Now she travels to see clients or prospects in medical offices, customizing software to fit the needs of the doctors, nurses, billers and front-desk clerks. Unless all of them find the electronic record system easy to use, they won’t use it.

“This really is my love,” Brunelli says. “I want medicine to make use of the computer.”

Most nurses, doctors and health administrators don’t have Brunelli’s software training, so Visionary puts them through six to eight weeks of in-house IT training. They need to understand code even if they’re not writing it themselves, Patchen says.

Doctors and nurses provide content for the health records, arranging time-saving lists of likely symptoms, diagnoses, tests and prescriptions so their client clinicians can substitute quick clicks for handwritten charts. That provides a solid audit trail to back up the billing.

They also tell the computer what kinds of prompts to give the clinical staff. Did Mr. Smith stop at the lab for blood tests, as instructed? Are the results in? Did Mrs. Jones fill her prescription this time, or has she stopped taking her medicine again?

Hospitals’ information needs are even more complex because patients are often unable to communicate and in many cases are desperately ill. They need a rapid series of tests and treatments conducted by different departments, and monitoring by a broad variety of health professionals who work on different shifts and seldom communicate except through electronic records.

Subhead

Tampa General Hospital spends about $20 million in operating funds and at least $5 million in capital expenses annually on information systems, says Ginger Oliver, its vice president for information systems.

Although that represents only 2.5 percent of TGH’s billion-dollar budget, she said, it’s a vital fraction that affects every department. “If I break down,” Oliver said, “they break down.”

A pediatric nurse who switched to information systems in 1982 when the hospital got its first computers, Oliver acquired an MBA and worked her way up to senior management. Nurses are an increasing presence among chief information officers in health care, she said, and she employs five former nurses who have shifted to programming.

It’s not hard to see why. Unlike nursing, IT requires no heavy lifting, no blood or other body fluids, and higher pay. Oliver was losing her IT staff to other industries until she persuaded the hospital’s human resources staff that the pay scale had to conform to the IT industry, not to that of a hospital.

Given the nursing shortage, some worry whether health care can afford to lose more nurses to information management. But the question is moot unless the industry is willing to increase nursing salaries by 50 percent.

Reporter Carol Gentry can be reached at (813) 259-7624 or cgentry@tampatrib.com.

TAMPA – Indian-American businessmen from across Florida, including an East Coast hotelier, a Largo pharmaceutical executive and a Tampa mortgage broker, appear to be financially backing a Tampa company’s plan to build two Westin hotels, a W hotel and possibly even a Ritz-Carlton in the Bay area.

The company’s ambitious plans may be a sign of the increasing clout of the area’s Indian community, particularly in hotels and resorts. At least two other developers who are from India or of Indian descent are planning high-end hotels in Tampa’s Rocky Point area.

This week, news slipped out that Fuel Group International had purchased the former Best Western hotel on Tampa’s West Shore Boulevard, now called the Westshore Hotel. County property records show the purchase price as $17.4 million.

Meanwhile, the company’s Web site, at www.fuelgroupinternational.com, revealed a series of proposed hotel projects:

•Redeveloping the Westshore Hotel into a Westin hotel/office project.

•Building a high-end boutique W hotel near the Tampa Convention Center.

•Building a 22-story Westin hotel/condo building in downtown St. Petersburg.

•Building a W or Ritz-Carlton as part of the Kiran Grand Resort & Spa in Clearwater Beach, which is being developed by businessman and philanthropist Kiran Patel.

The company’s Web site shows that its entertainment arm owns two Fuel nightclubs in Ybor City and the Channel District. The company is controlled by J.S. Lalwani and his father, Jiwat Lalwani, a former energy industry executive in Nigeria who is on the board of the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce, a local Indian-American business group.

A Fuel Group official, Richard MacKizer, declined to say where the company is getting the millions it needs to pull off its ambitious plans.

However, Florida corporation records list several Indian-American businessmen who are partners in the companies that Fuel Group has created to invest in the hotels.

Among them are:

•Shubh Hotels. Led by Atul Bisaria, this Boca Raton-based hotel company owns four hotels across the country, including a Hilton hotel in Pittsburgh and a Doubletree Guest Suites in Boca Raton. It also manages five other hotels across the country, its Web site says. Bisaria did not return calls Wednesday.

•Jugal Taneja. A New Delhi immigrant, Taneja is chairman of a Largo company called GeoPharma that manufactures generic drugs and nutritional supplements. Federal securities filings show the company had revenue of about $60 million and profits of about $2.2 million in its 2007 fiscal year, which ended in March. However, Taneja said recent acquisitions may bring the company’s annual revenue up to $200 million within months.

Taneja said he has a 50 percent interest in the Westshore Westin hotel project, a 20 percent interest in the downtown St. Petersburg project and a 2.5 percent interest in the W hotel project in downtown Tampa.

Taneja said the real estate market is in a state of flux, and the company is taking its time in developing the hotel projects.

•Santosh Govindaraju. Chairman of the Indo-US Chamber, Govindaraju is head of a Tampa mortgage lending business called Paragon Capital Partners. Florida corporation records show that one of his affiliated companies is involved with the downtown Tampa W hotel project. He declined to comment Wednesday.

Across the country, hoteliers of Indian descent nearly dominate some sectors of the industry. Indians own 39 percent of midmarket hotels in America, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.

Dilipkumar ‘Danny’ Patel is chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. Combined, its members control 24,000 hotels, Patel said. Indian-American hoteliers today control about 39 percent of the U.S. midmarket hotel industry, typified by Holiday Inn Express and Comfort Inn. They command 50 percent of the economy segment, typified by Travelodge and others, Patel said.

Most often, Indian-Americans enter the industry through small economy hotels and acquire higher-end hotels as they grow more successful, Patel said. Locally, hotel developer Dilip Kanji is planning a Westin hotel and condo project along the Courtney Campbell Causeway in Tampa. Meanwhile, Clearwater developer Sandip Patel is hoping to replace a Radisson hotel on Rocky Point with a Ritz-Carlton.

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865 or msasso@tampatrib.com.

INDO-US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
6th Annual Golf Invitational

Friday, July 27th, 2007

The Eagles Golf Club
16101 Nine Eagles Drive
Odessa, FL 33556Registration 11:30am | Lunch 12:00pm | Shotgun Start 1:30pm

$100 Entry Fee Includes: Green Fee & Cart, Lunch

Awards Dinner, Foursome Photo, On Course Beverages, Range Balls, Goody Bag and Much More

Format: Four-Player Scramble

Prizes will be awarded to the 1st and 2nd place team in 3 divisions from low handicaps to high handicaps along with longest drive and closest to the pin prizes. There will be seperate competitions also.

Form your own foursome, sponsor a foursome or be placed on a team.

Other Information: In case of inclement weather on the day of the event, contact The Eagles Golf Club at (813) 852-1323 Contact Tournament Coordinator: Samant Sharma, call or e-mail for Registration & Sponsorship Information: (727) 799-5615 or Samant_Sharma@ml.com
Click here to fill out registration form.

What does it take to grow a bi-national chamber in the Bay area?

Ask officials of the Indo-U.S. Chamber of Commerce and they will answer: young professional leaders.

Established six years ago, the Indo-U.S. Chamber saw its membership grow 34 percent in the last year alone, taking its total membership to 2,000. Unlike other chambers, its executive committee’s average age is only 33 years old.

Not only are they young, but they also are all professionals in senior levels of management, college graduates and from countries as different as India, the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Guyana, Jamaica, China, Kenya, and Trinidad and Tobago.

“Our common ground is that we are all Indian-Americans who happen to be business professionals in Tampa,” said Jill Isaac, media relations’ officer at the chamber. “We bring experience from diverse business areas.”

Vishal M. Mathani, VP of business development at interactive advertising firm iMarketer in Tampa, credits the chamber’s executive committee and president for the group’s success.

“Prash Pavagadhi is an excellent leader and has many of the same interests, goals and aspirations as the rest of the executive committee, which allows him to relate to all of us on many levels,” he said. “The time he has committed to the chamber blows all of us away.”

No one, not even Pavagadhi, receives a salary. “We are all volunteers,” said Rajeev Ratra, founder of outsourcing firm Arnima in Tampa.

The chamber also employs a business model that is different than every other chamber in Tampa Bay.

“It’s free to become a member,” said Pavagadhi. “Members receive a free monthly newsletter, it’s free to attend our monthly meetings, and we also provide free dinner at our meetings.”

Attending any of those meetings, geared to business development, education, and networking is “like attending a business seminar that covers topics such as leadership, team building, management, marketing and much more,” said Mathani.

So how does the chamber cover its expenses?

“Our expenses are covered by three major financial contributors: our board of directors, corporate sponsors and fund-raising events (like our annual golf tournament and our annual social),” said Pavagadhi.

And people don’t have to be of Indian origin to join. “Everybody is welcome,” he said.

Pavagadhi became a member two years ago because he didn’t feel that mainstream chambers of commerce were doing enough to support his professional needs.

“It almost seemed like they were competing with each other to get membership fees from professionals and beyond that they offered very little,” he said. “Because the membership is free with the Indo-U.S. Chamber, I felt that I had nothing to lose. When I attended the events, it became very clear that the ethos is directly focused on member needs rather than chamber needs.”

The businesses that participate in the Indo-U.S. Chamber have combined revenue that exceeds $1 billion. They employ more than 5,000 people in the Bay area, nationwide and abroad.

agguerrero@bizjournals.com | 813.342.2463 Kathleen Cabble
Members of the Indo-U.S. Chamber of Commerce meet. Sitting, Ravi Seepersad, Prash Pavagadhi, president of the chamber, Shiven Ramji, and Francis Vayalumkal and standing are Santosh Govindaraja, Samant Sharma and Rachana Dinkar.
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