Coming from a humble background, Aravind Melligeri’s quest for perfection led to his founding an engineering consulting company, says ABHINAV SINGH

Aravind Melligeri, President, QuEST

SOME people dream and go all out to make their dreams a reality. Aravind Melligeri, president, QuEST (Quality Engineering & Software Technologies, LLC) is one of that rare breed. Hailing from Hubli in Karnataka, Melligeri was greatly influenced by his cousins who had gone to the US for higher studies. “I aspired to go to the US from my childhood days,” says Melligeri. He worked hard and ended up not only studying in the US but also succeeded as an entrepreneur there.

Melligeri started his education at the government school in Hubli with Kannada as the medium of instruction. He then shifted to Hubli’s English-medium Lamington High School in class VIII. Here he pursued physics and mathematics, and did well. In his plus two, Melligeri excelled in physics, chemistry and maths, scoring an average 87 percent in the three subjects. He was fond of cricket and debating. “Being an asthmatic I was not heavily into outdoor sports…I only pursued cricket. Indoor activities like carrom really interested me,” says Melligeri. After passing out from Lamington in 1986, Melligeri joined Surathkal Engineering College near Mangalore in Karnataka for his BE in electrical engineering. He shifted to mechanical engineering in 1987, simultaneously pursuing a computer science programming course. “Mechanical engineering gives you the flexibility to enter different fields such as computer science and automotives,” explains Melligeri.

Taking an active interest in college activities at Surathkal, he continued to play cricket. By the time he entered his final year, he had firmly set his sights on going to the US for higher studies. That meant sitting for GRE and TOEFL. He did well in these tests. At this point TISCO selected Melligeri in a campus interview. But since he had already secured his visa he turned down the offer and took off for the US in 1990 to join Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in Pittsburgh where he pursued a masters in mechanical engineering. “Due to my interest in computers I was also assigned the task of managing the complete computer network of my department as a system administrator.”

At PSU, Melligeri was a member of the Indian Students’ Association. As a system administrator he installed an Internet connection in his department in 1992. This was a time when though most universities in the US had Internet connections, all departments were not connected. Says Melligeri, “The Internet was then purely academic, and people shared information using Newsnet and e-mail. PSU had a central Internet connection that was used by all departments. When I was there we set up a fibre optic connection between our department and the central Internet routing point in the university. This helped us set up a sub-domain for the mechanical engineering department called me.psu.edu, and also helped us issue e-mail addresses to all students and employees of the department.”

While pursuing his masters Melligeri spent a year doing his PhD programme. He was greatly influenced by his mentor, Katherine Lilly, and took special interest in robotics. But seeing the market conditions and limited scope of a doctorate in helping him secure a job, Melligeri decided to leave the PhD programme. 1994 found him in Detroit working for Stat Design, a company which did consulting work for Ford Motors. Melligeri helped set up Stat’s 2,000 square feet office in Detroit. Having secured a green card, he continued to work for the next three years at Stat during which time he worked on a project on occupant safety. This involved redesigning a car to ensure that the driver and passengers were safe.

In April 1997 Melligeri’s life changed when he decided to set up QuEST, a self-funded company, along with his friend Ajit Prabhu. QuEST kicked off in a 200 square feet area in upstate New York. The company focussed on engineering consulting services, and bagged its first contract worth $20,000 from GE Power Systems. During its first year of operations QuEST had about a dozen people, mostly Americans. Melligeri decided to stay on in Detroit to hunt for business prospects while Prabhu stayed in New York and oversaw QuEST’s operations. April 1998 found Melligeri setting up QuEST India at Bangalore to support the company’s US operations. Gradually, QuEST’s portfolio grew to encompass consulting work in aerospace, automobiles, oil and gas and many industrial products. While Melligeri is still based in the US, he has done long stints in India thanks to QuEST’s expanding presence here. Now that QuEST’s headcount is over 200, Melligeri has started looking after the managerial and financial functions. “The company has been reorganised and the management has been scaled up. There are plans to hire more people. I involve myself fully in all these initiatives.”

The man holds his family in high esteem and freely acknowledges, “My wife Mai and kids Megha, Akhil and Nikhil help me take the pressure.”

Melligeri reads to unwind on weekends and holidays. “I read a lot, especially business newspapers and their international editions on the Net. I also travel frequently, mainly on business visits. I’m a movie buff and like watching art films.” In the long term he wants to continue building his baby. “My aim is to take QuEST to greater heights and turn it into one of the best companies in the world.”

abhinav@expresscomputeronline.com