Avesta Computing

With a head office at the World Trade Center and branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Poona (India), Avesta Computer Services Ltd was ranked 97 on Inc 500’s 500 fastest growing private companies, writes Roshan Rivetna in FEZANA Journal (Winter 2001). Then, on September 11, 2001 founder president and CEO Cyrus Davierwalla and vice president Rushad Cassad saw their office crumble and fall — Davierwalla on a TV screen in Poona; Cassad from their New Jersey office across the Hudson River. Both of them agreed, "It could have been worse; fortunately we did not lose any of our (115) employees to this tragedy.”

Relocating some of their employees in New Jersey while some worked from home, "they reconfigured computer, telephone, e-mail and networking systems, restored data from backups kept in the Jersey office and started rebuilding,” writes Rivetna.

Financial controller Dadi Sethna, manager resources Farrokh Tuner, senior marketing executive Eric Gagrat, and software engineers Navrooz Irani, Nekzad Shroff and Vispi Patel all work with Avesta. Cyrus Nallaseth handled their immigration and legal work and Rustom Irani and Homsi Patel of RBI Trading helped the young firm stand on its feet — "a great example of Zarathushti businesses helping each other,” notes Rivetna.

Cassad and Davierwalla: "breathe the effort”

With its large pool of qualified technical personnel working full-time, Avesta has been able to provide computer consulting services across the US. Its specialized technology and functions have been made available to large corporations for time frames ranging from a couple of weeks to a year, states Rivetna. Avail­ing of Avesta’s services are Cisco, Bank of New York, Apple, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Intel, IBM and AT & T amid a client list of large banks, telecommunications, insurance, pharmaceuti­cal and information technology companies.

With sales booming from $ 592,000 in 1995 to over $ 13 million in 1999 (which placed them on the Inc 500 list) by 2000 their revenue figure had stood at $ 16 million.

Davierwalla arrived in the US in 1991 for a masters in computer science. Wanting to do something on his own, he gave up the family hotels (Il Palazzo) in Panchgani, Surat and elsewhere, developed contacts in the computer field and started his business in 1994 from his sister’s home with a loan from her to buy his first computer. Grateful to his family for helping him out when his bank balance had dwindled to $ 80, Davierwalla advises the nascent entrepreneur to "grasp the moment, breathe ‘the effort,’ cherish your associations and embrace the outcome. (Also) make sure you have enough capital.”