Indo-Asian News Service
Washington,

Influential Indian American businessman Lahori Ram, who had no one to lean on when he came to the US three decades ago and worked for some time as a farm labourer, has been appointed to a top California body.

Ram, 59, was one of seven business leaders appointed by Governor Gray Davis to a four-year term on the California State Commission for Economic Development.

Ram owns a string of apartment units in the Bay Area of southern California and is close to political leaders like former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

His journey to the U.S. and his attaining fame and fortune reads like any other success story of non-resident Indians (NRIs) who have made it big in this land.

Ram left India as a 28-year-old graduate student in 1972. He knew no one in the U.S. and had no idea where he would sleep when he landed.

He eventually made his way to Yuba College in Yuba, California, to pursue a master's degree in foreign affairs. He worked summers as a farm labourer.

In 1976, Ram started a career with the U.S. Postal Service at the San Francisco International Airport branch, working up from the registry clerk to a mid-level manager before retiring in 1994.

Ram bought the family's first home in San Bruno in 1979, sold it in 1984 to purchase the first of several apartment buildings. Over the course of 10 years, he acquired, sold and bought apartments and made it big as a realtor.

Even while working for the postal service in 1981, he helped found the Sri Guru Ravidass Sabha Temple in Pittsburg, a California suburb.

He is reputed to donate to charity and is a well-known figure in Sikh and Hindu religious circles, according to San Francisco Examiner newspaper.

In the 1990s, he got involved in political fund-raising. This was the beginning of his political career.

And that was how the state Senate president Pro Tem and Democrat from San Francisco, John Burton, came to appoint Ram to the state Technology Trade and Commerce Committee in 1997.

In 2000 Ram was appointed to the state Transportation Commission, overseeing Caltrans projects across California.

"We became millionaires not by being lazy. All that we have is earned by hard work and working smart," Ram said of his success story.