Success Stories
Prakash Bhalerao, Vinayak Gokhale and Shree Thanedar... have been successful in their pursuit of the American Dream ... Chinmay Arun Damle profiles their success stories.

He likes to call himself a 'serial entrepreneur'. Others prefer to call him the 'Indian Wu Fu Chan'.
Prakash Bhalerao is a successful high-technology entrepreneur, angel investor and venture capitalist and has co-founded several admired - and highly sought-after - Silicon Valley start-ups, including Amber Networks, Ishoni Networks, Alopa Networks, Optim Networks and ECTone.To date, Prakash has been closely involved in launching over forty companies worldwide including IPOs by C-Cube Inc., and Sage Inc., as well as acquisitions of Amber Networks (by Nokia), Ambit Inc. (by Cadence Inc.), Ishoni Networks (by Philips), Armedia Inc. (by Broadcom Inc.), and vEngines Inc. to name a few. He is an active participant and limited partner in more than 10 venture funds, some of which are focused on emerging opportunities in India. He also has played an active role in several India-targeted companies.
His wife Dr. Sujata has been a constant support all through the exciting but strenuous journey. She has made sure that the family stays glued to its Indian roots. The children, Leena and Neil, learn Indian classical music. Dr. Sujata is involved in voluntary work through an organization called 'Maitra' which strives to help needy women from the subcontinent.
Belonging to a modest middle-class family, Bhalerao's fame and reputation were engraved on an entrepreneurial motto he adopted very early in life. After graduating from University of Indore in Electrical Engineering, he came to USA where he received an MSEE and an MBA from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He began his career at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), eventually becoming General Manager of DEC's entire semiconductor business. Following his successful stint at DEC, he joined C-Cube Microsystems as a founding team member and served as a Senior Vice President of Engineering and Product Marketing. This best-known 'hustler investor' of Silicon Valley founded, led or guided a whopping 40 IT companies. Splitting, cannibalizing and spinning off start-ups with alacrity, he gained a hardball reputation famous for speed. Mr. Bhalerao reflects," IT is that deep edge frontier of the technology world, one where even geeks tread with care. And right there, on the edge of technology, are Indians. There is not a single networking company in the Valley that does not have an Indian as a founder or Chief Technology officer. Several Indian 'network nawabs' and honchos have sculpted their own niches, a large number of them being Maharashtrians."
With such an entrepreneurial fire and almost hallucinogenic optimism, it doesn't come as a surprise when Mr. Prakash Bhalerao is referred to as 'the nearest thing to a banyan tree in the Indian-American community'.

Language is a cornerstone of cultural preservation. It records history, tells stories, conveys ceremonies, and imparts knowledge. Language names and differentiates the surrounding world, providing meaning and structure for all communication. Through its choice of words and rules of vocabulary, language perpetuates cultural values and sustains a world view. It preserves a community's identity. A language is endangered when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next.
When a language dies or is lost, the people who once spoke its words lose something irreplaceable, a sense of themselves as a people united by their own language.
When Vinayak Gokhale came to Canada in 1966, there were a handful of Maharashtrians in USA and Canada. The spoken and written language had started to spiral into an abyss of technological grunts and glitzy packaging. He knew his identity was tied into Marathi in very deep ways. It was central to who he was. The urge to read, discuss Marathi literature, stay tuned to the latest developments in the world of music and performing arts made him take an initiative and a group was formed to make efforts to satiate this thirst. 'Snehabandha' (the bond of love) was the first step in this direction. Gokhale was the editor of this handwritten newsletter.
'Ektaa' (unity) was started in 1979. The first issue of this magazine caught attention of the Maharashtrian community in Canada and then there was no looking back. Gokhale was not only the editor but he also had to look after the management and distribution. He was later joined by Ms. Durga Pachchapurkar, Ms. Rajashri Manohar and Ms. Vinita Utagikar. His wife, Pratibha, and sons, Rajesh and Anil, have also played an important role in bringing 'Ektaa' to the forefront. With a readership of almost 1,500 this small magazine has not only been instrumental in catering to the needs of the first generation immigrants, but has also made the third generation Indian-Americans aware of their roots.
Marathi is particularly vulnerable because of its saliency on one hand and its lack of organic roots in USA, on the other. Mr. Vinayak Gokhale and his team should therefore be applauded for his efforts. After all, People used to apologize for not speaking English well. Now they apologize for not speaking Marathi well.

On a freezing cold February eve in 1979, Shree Thanedar landed in the USA as a young Indian student with a bagful of dreams and no warm clothes. Today he is aglow with a different concoction altogether: money and success, the kind of which few of his ilk has ever seen. He owns Chemir Analytical Services and is the President of Brihan Maharashtra Mandal (N. America).
Growing up in Belgaum, Karnataka, the idea of one day running a multi-million-dollar American enterprise was no doubt quite improbable to Thanedar. The oldest boy among nine siblings, his immediate concern was helping feed his family. A brilliant student, they all thought he was made for life when after college he landed a job in a Bank. But he did not want to be intellectually stymied. He left the cushy job and joined BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Center) where he worked for four years. He earned an M.S. in chemistry while working as a health technician at the center and soon his inherent restlessness got him to think about obtaining a Ph.D., and possibly working, outside the country.
He applied to the University of Akron, in Ohio, after learning about its strength in polymer chemistry and was admitted in 1979. By the fall of 1982, Thanedar had his Ph.D., but the U.S. was in recession and he couldn't find a job. In 1984, he completed the postdoc at Ann Arbor and was finally getting job offers. With a newborn son and a wife finishing a medical school residency, it was a bad time for Thanedar to set out on his own. He wasn't quite sure how he would achieve that goal, but he had big dreams and was determined to start his own business. The opportunity for Thanedar arose in 1990 when Clara Craver, a scientist and founder of what was then known as Chemir/Polytech Laboratories Inc., offered to sell him the company for $75,000. He financed the acquisition by taking a loan from a local bank.
Shree Thanedar's journey from a poor childhood in India to the helm of a group of chemistry-based companies is a classic American dream story. And with a recent custom synthesis acquisition and the formation of a new pharmaceutical services company, it's a continuing story as well. Thanedar lives in Ladue with his sons, Neil and Samir, and his wife, Shashi.