Raiders Rising
International travelers, entrepreneurs find family at SOU
BY JOE MOSLEY
It’s fitting that Sachta Bakshi was visiting her grandparents in Ashland when she fell in love with Southern Oregon University.
It’s always been a family affair.
She was a 10th-grader in India at the time, and a chance visit to campus led her to the Admissions Office, SAT tests a few days later and then the intriguing prospect of a student job in SOU’s International Programs office.
What followed has become legend in the university’s School of Business. Sachta enrolled in fall 2007 as a biology major, then quickly changed to business administration after her economics test scores drew notice.
“I was acing those, so (faculty members) said, ‘You need to change your major,'” she said.
Good advice.
In four years and with honors, Sachta earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration and certificate in applied finance and economics. She went to San Francisco State University for her MBA and master’s in international business (in France), then returned to SOU for the Master’s in Management Program.
Her sister, Sohana, followed Sachta to SOU and earned her bachelor’s degree – in three years – in business administration with a concentration in management and a minor in psychology. Sohana followed up by earning her MBA and master’s in international management in one additional year at SOU.
In the meantime, Sachta met her future husband, Andy Card, at SOU – where he earned his MBA and master’s in international management, after receiving his bachelor’s degree at Northwest Christian University in Eugene.
“I loved my classes (at SOU), and I think the School of Business is one of the coolest communities,” Sachta said. “It’s like a family. Everyone is so approachable – that’s what I loved about SOU.”
“(Faculty members) are really involved – not just in our education, but in our lives.”
After a couple years of working separately – he in Europe, she in Oregon – Andy and Sachta reunited in Ashland, married and purchased Oberon’s Restaurant & Bar on the downtown plaza. Then her parents moved from India to Ashland, and together the two couples opened Masala Bistro & Bar, an Indian-American fusion restaurant on A Street.
“I loved my classes, and I think the School of Business is one of the coolest communities… It’s like a family. Everyone is so approachable – that’s what I loved about SOU.”
– SACHTA BAKSHI –
Sachta and Andy recently helped her parents open another restaurant in Medford – Flavor Restaurant & Bar, which serves a global fusion cuisine on West Main Street. They are also working on another project of their own – an Indian restaurant and event space in downtown Medford.
“Everything, we learned at business school here,” Andy said during a recent visit to the SOU campus.
Sohana, meanwhile, returned to India and married her childhood sweetheart. She owns a fair trade clothing and accessories business that operates primarily online and with wholesale customers, and she returns to the U.S. a couple times per year to promote her business. She has participated in trade shows in New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, and will soon be in Las Vegas.
“I have always wanted to study business and be an entrepreneur,” Sohana said. “SOU’s program helped me achieve my goal fast, without compromising the quality of education.”
Sachta and husband Andy met at the SOU School of Business
SOU faculty bring family approach
Business professor Curt Bacon first met Sachta, whom he describes as “a brilliant student,” but his mentorship with the family achieved critical mass when Sohana arrived at SOU. She was in the Accelerated Baccalaureate three-year degree program that Bacon directs and needed to meet with him regularly.
“Suddenly I had both in my classes, or office hours, and I began to tease them a little about boyfriends and being sisters,” he said.
“Eventually, I became their ‘American Dad’ – I guess the conversations moved from school to life and the future, and I was there when their family was half a world away.”
The student-professor relationships were strong, but they weren’t exclusive to Bacon.
Sachta remembers business faculty member John Kinard inviting international students to holiday gatherings “because they didn’t have any place to go.” She served as vice president and then president of the International Student Association during her time at SOU – along with the Student Senate, and her work in the International Programs office – and fondly recalls the potlucks, craft-making, movie nights and fund-raising to give other international students opportunities to travel around Oregon.
“Who would know SOU had 120 students from 40 foreign countries?” she said.
Sachta and Andy have planned an upcoming trip to Japan and reached out to about 20 former students living there.
“They said, ‘Let’s have an SOU reunion in Japan,'” she said.
It was another business professor, Mark Siders, who connected both Andy and Sohana with a master’s in international management exchange program through the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (University of Applied Sciences) in Germany.
“I genuinely learned a great deal from my MBA program that I apply to my practical life in my business,” Sohana said. “And through the dual degree program, I got the opportunity to do my second master’s in Germany, which was a wonderful experience.”
Andy said the exchange program added dimension to his overall SOU experience.
“I had a brief time at SOU, but for me, it was the relationships with professors,” he said. “I loved the MBA program here, a lot. The classes were small, so that allowed for great discussions.”
“I established great friendships here, in just a short amount of time.”
Sachta and Andy ran into another of their professors – Katie Pittman, now the director of SOU’s Division of Business, Communication and the Environment – during their recent visit to campus.
It was a meeting of old friends, with benefits. Andy took the occasion to ask Pittman a question about spreadsheets he uses at the restaurants, and they made arrangements to talk later and work out a solution.
“I give lifetime teaching support,” Pittman said, ribbing her former students.
Still, it’s Bacon who has really gone the extra mile for the family – and then some.
He and his wife, Susan, were invited to a Bakshi family holiday gathering in Ashland last December, and Bacon suspected at the time that it could portend an invitation to Sohana’s wedding in India.
“Sure enough, Sohana asked us and 10 weeks later we were in India,” he said. “To give you an idea how important Sohana, Sachta and their family are to us, this was the first and only student wedding invitation I have accepted in over 30 years of teaching.”
“Sohana and Sachta are exceptions to the rule – they are truly outstanding examples of how far our students can go with a little help, and a lot of hard work and desire.”
“Eventually, I became their ‘American Dad’ – I guess the conversations moved from school to life and the future, and I was there when their family was half a world away.”
– CURT BACON, SOU SCHOOL OF BUSINESS PROFESSOR –
Sohana’s path from India and back
Sohana may have followed her sister to SOU – she visited from India several times while in high school and had become familiar with campus – but she took her own path after arriving in the fall of 2010.
Their grandparents, Kumud and Gokul Gokani, moved to Ashland from India in 1998, following his 36-year career as a physician in India, England and Africa. They now operate the Aum Awakening Center on Garfield Street, where Gokul offers meditation classes and counseling, and Kumud teaches Indian cooking. Both host long-running public access programs on SOU’s Rogue Valley Community Television.
“When picking where I should go for higher education, my mom stumbled upon the Acc-Bacc Program online,” Sohana said. “That made my decision to go to SOU even stronger, because then I could spend time focusing on the subjects I was passionate about rather than spending a whole extra year doing electives I had already done in high school.”
“It helped me graduate a year early – in which I finished a dual master’s degree. So technically, I was able to finish three degrees in four years, instead of just having done one.”
She credits Bacon for keeping her on-track for early graduation, even after she made the decision – difficult in various ways – to change her minor, midstream.
“He is an amazing professor and a great advisor,” Sohana said.
“Taking economics (as a minor) would have made more sense, since a lot of the business and econ classes overlapped,” she said. “But Curt told me to follow my passion for psychology, and we sat for hours to rework my classes to fit this new change.”
Bacon recognized Sohana’s enthusiasm for broadening her horizons, and also her gift for identifying business concepts and plans. Her undergraduate capstone project that detailed a model for medical tourism in India “was brilliant,” he said.
Sachta and SOU School of Business Professor Katie Pittman
“After graduation, Sohana broke out another idea she had been working on for some time – to design Indian fashions, manufacture small lots in India, import to the U.S., and wholesale to small boutiques and other outlets,” Bacon said.
“She took her idea from nothing to one that is a successful business. It’s really, really difficult work, but eventually, she reached that (threshold), and she has a successful business.”
Her company, Sohana, features clothing and accessories that are handmade by Indian artisans – and most are designed by Sohana. Some of her biggest clients have been the University of Southern California, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Asian Art in California and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.
“Every product we put out there is a labor of love,” she said.
Sohana falls back on her SOU experiences every day, both in business and life. Like her sister, she led the International Student Association as vice president and then president. She learned about other cultures and still keeps in touch with friends from a dozen or more countries. She values the proficiency in writing and clear communication that was emphasized throughout her studies, calling it a skill that’s “helpful in every field.”
More than anything, she appreciates that faculty members knew and cared about their students.
“The most helpful thing was the low student-to-teacher ratio,” Sohana said. “It made (professors) feel like family.
“I would recommend that people not pick colleges based on rankings, but based on the student-to-teacher ratio and the quality of faculty.”
“‘Am I ever going to use this?’ I didn’t realize some of these statistics classes were ever going to come in handy… a well-rounded education is so key to being successful.”
– ANDY CARD –
Andy chooses a broader world
Andy’s background, in some ways, couldn’t be more different from that of his wife and sister-in-law. The Bakshi sisters were born and raised about 8,000 miles from Ashland; his hometown of Medford is just 16 miles up I-5.
He was born into a trucking family – his grandfather, Richard Card, founded the specialized hauling firm Combined Transport in 1980. Innovations such as a new way to safely haul flat glass products without breaking them helped the company grow to more than 500 heavy-haul trucks that ship a variety of goods throughout the U.S. and Canada.
But like Sachta and Sohana, Andy developed a passion for both exploration and entrepreneurial pursuits. All three – now SOU alumni – have learned to focus on what interests them, and Andy chose several years ago to pursue a broader world.
“I didn’t join the (trucking) business,” Andy said. “I thought I was going to be living abroad all my life.”
After earning his bachelor’s degree at Northwest Christian University in Eugene and then working a couple years in the music industry in New York and Los Angeles, he considered his options.
He looked into the Peace Corps, but found that he wouldn’t receive the assignment he wanted. He researched the International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences (AIESEC), a nonprofit that offers leadership development through internships and exchanges, but felt he’d get more out of that experience if he earned his master’s degree first.
Sachta and Andy Visit with Professor Katie Pittman
That led him to SOU’s MBA program and, under professor Mark Siders’ guidance, to the master’s in international business exchange program in Germany.
“I was the first SOU student to be involved in that program, and I loved it,” Andy said.
The MBA program exposed him to various forms of business and financial analytics, marketing strategy, leadership development and networking – all skills that he and Sachta use regularly in their restaurant businesses.
“I guess what you draw upon is the overall mindset that the School of Business tries to instill,” Andy said. “You’re thinking in high school, and even some college classes, ‘Am I ever going to use this?’ I didn’t realize some of these statistics classes were ever going to come in handy.”
“But a well-rounded education is so key to being successful.”
Andy reconnected with AIESEC, the student-led international nonprofit, after completing his graduate studies at SOU. That resulted in an internship with UPS in Belgium, which led to a regular position developing marketing copy for the shipping firm.
“I loved it, and I loved being in Europe,” he said.
But he and Sachta – who was working for a southern Oregon accounting firm – were dating, and they began discussing the restaurant business with her parents, who were successful restaurateurs in India.
“I quit (UPS), came back home, we got married and we took over Oberon’s,” Andy said.
“Seven days after we got married,” Sachta pointed out.
It helped me graduate a year early – in which I finished a dual master’s degree. So technically, I was able to finish three degrees in four years, instead of just having done one.”
– SOHANA BAKSHI – About the Accelerated Baccalaureate Program
Restaurants, family, travel and SOU
Sachta’s life has always been international. Her grandparents spent much of their careers outside of India, and her parents passed along a comfort in exploration.
Andy’s travel bug became epidemic when he studied and then worked in Europe. Visiting new places and learning about other cultures meshed perfectly with his longtime passion for photography.
So the couple’s shift to restaurant ownership was more strategic than it may seem. Both wanted to apply the skills and concepts they learned at SOU and elsewhere. They also wanted the flexibility of owning their own businesses.
“When we were working for other people, there was just never enough time to travel,” Andy said. “We need to be our own bosses, because we need to leave whenever we want to leave.”
“When we’re here, we’re working seven days a week,” he said.
“And 10 hours a day,” Sachta added.
The couple have developed a rough travel target of two international trips plus a few U.S. vacations each year. That’s something they couldn’t manage in their previous jobs.
“It was just really claustrophobic, not being able to take time off,” Sachta said.
Both also enjoy the benefit of having extended family in southern Oregon. And they like having the resources and connections of SOU close at hand.
“I loved my time here,” she said during their recent visit to campus.
As her husband took a couple minutes to describe his spreadsheet problems to Pittman, his former professor, Sachta nodded and smiled.
“This is what I mean by access to faculty,” she said.
Rise to the Challenge
Raiders Rising is a series of in-depth feature stories about SOU students and recent alumni who have risen to academic, career or personal challenges in spectacular ways.
Contributors:
Joe Mosley – Author
Greg Martin – Graphic Design
Christopher Wikel – Photography
Sean Glassford – Website Development
