Faraj
US Residency est. 1978 | US Citizenship est. 1985
When I landed in Boston on September 4th, 1978 as a high school student, I thought I had it all planned out. I would finish school, get my engineering degree in the US, and go back home to work and raise a family in Iran. I grew up in a large family in the western province of Lorestan in Iran. My dad was working for the national railroad when I left for the US. Little did I know that 3 days after my arrival, millions of people would pour into the streets in Iran, and — well, you know the rest. As luck would have it, I didn’t end up going back home and I didn’t see my parents for 15 years.
I finished high school in 1979 and got into university. I graduated in a little over two years with my bachelors in engineering — which, by the way, I would never recommend to my kids. But I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t know if I could afford eight semesters of tuition. My parents couldn’t send money out of Iran because the government froze all payments to the US. But I found out that if you maintained a GPA above 3.5 and paid your tuition, you could take as many credits as you wanted. A normal amount of credits was around 16 — I took 25.
Going to school during the hostage crisis was pretty tough. You would walk onto the campus and there would be graffiti and banners that said “GO HOME” hanging from the library. If it wasn’t for the kindness of some strangers during that time, I don’t know how I would have made it. I would go to school during the day, and at nights I would work in a gas station near campus from 6pm to 6am. The owner of the gas station, George, he had all these Iranian kids working for him. He used to joke that he wouldn’t allow anyone with a GPA below 3.0 to work for him.
I met my first wife in 1979 and we got married. By the time I graduated in 1981, she was already pregnant with my first son. After graduation, I was able to get a co-op job. It was pretty amazing that they agreed to hire me during the hostage crisis. They even applied for a greencard for me and my wife after a few months. I’ll never forget that; it changed the course of my life.
By this time the Iran-Iraq war had already started back home, and it wouldn’t end for another eight years. My dad had retired and my parents were living in the province of Khuzestan near the Iran-Iraq border. They were so close to the fighting that a bomb fell in our backyard. Fortunately no one was hurt, but my parents decided to move back to Lorestan, to a house at the foot of a mountain. They thought being near the mountain would be safer. Well, another bomb landed in that backyard too. Imagine that.
It’s only slightly comical now because no one in my immediate family was harmed, and it’s such an absurd situation. But these really were some of the hardest years of my life. As much as my parents missed me, they were begging me not to come home. And every time I called, I never knew who would be alive and who wouldn’t. I’m fortunate not to have lost any immediate family, but I can’t say the same for my extended family and friends.
Meanwhile, in the US, I was working at my co-op and getting my masters degree at night. One of my professors was a fellow at Bell Labs and recruited me to go work with him. I ended up working there for 10 years, while also getting my MBA. When I finished, I decided to try my hand at management. In 1997 I started my own company; it went public three years later. It’s amazing to think about that in light of where I started. In 2003 I married my current wife, Susan, an immigrant circa 1997 and an entrepreneur in her own right.
None of this was part of the plan back in 1978.
