Fairfax's Point Man in India
Prasad Tagat Touts the County's Corporate Pluses

By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 2005

BANGALORE, India -- Most Indians have never heard of Fairfax County. Prasad Tagat aims to change that.

Calling himself a "brand ambassador" for Fairfax County, Tagat is in charge of luring technology companies from here -- India -- to there -- Northern Virginia. Hired in 2004, Tagat attends breakfast meetings and networking luncheons throughout India armed with glossy brochures and folders provided by the county. He recites statistics about the Fairfax school system and the number of Hindu temples in the county.

At a time when many U.S. workers worry about American jobs and companies relocating to India, Tagat's goal is simple and paradoxical: to woo Indian entrepreneurs ready to open U.S. offices to Fairfax.

His presence reflects a recognition by U.S. local governments that job creation and economic development now require crossing not just city, county and state lines, but international borders as well. Fairfax County boasts five offices overseas. And next month, the state of Maryland plans to open an India office, also in Bangalore. Whereas politicians once decried such overseas consultants as an unnecessary expense, now they deem them necessary to stay competitive.

But in this city informally known as India's technology headquarters, selling Washington's suburbs is not easy. Most tech companies here know Silicon Valley. But Fairfax County? The name draws blank stares, Tagat said.

So he has mastered a spiel that even a county real estate agent would envy -- customized to Indians, of course.

"There's a variety of Asians living there," he'll say.

Then: "Bangalore is connected to Dulles every day with just one stop."

On tapping Silicon Valley's venture capitalists: "With Southwest and JetBlue, the cost of travel to California doesn't matter as much."

On landing contracts: "A lot of tech firms are catering to the government. It's a recession-proof economy."

He concludes with his most powerful ammunition: the high test scores, from Advanced Placement exams to the SATs, in the county's schools.

Indian entrepreneurs "worry about their kids," Tagat said in a recent interview in his office here. "Will they be able to do well there?"

In most cases, Indian companies expanding into the U.S. market begin with a sales and marketing office. Far too many companies, according to Tagat, decide their U.S. location based on convenience, not strategy.

"A lot of Indian companies want to expand in the U.S. and they start out with a home office, maybe the home address of one of their technical guys. Or maybe their cousin lives there," Tagat said. "That's the attitude Indian companies have. I'm trying to change that."

Sixteen firms with headquarters in India have a presence in Fairfax County, according to the county's Economic Development Authority. Tagat takes responsibility for attracting just one of them; officials and Tagat himself say his first year was spent establishing his office in Bangalore and making Fairfax's presence in India known.

Besides dropping the names of the bigger Indian firms in Fairfax, Tagat also stresses the success of Indian immigrants in the county and their formal and informal networking groups. According to the 2000 Census, 32,226 Indians call Fairfax home -- more than 3 percent of the county's population.

Tagat left India in 1994 to work for a software company on Long Island, where he lived for seven years. As India's economy boomed and his son entered adolescence, Tagat returned here in early 2001 to enroll his son in an Indian school and open a marketing and advertising business.

So, after returning, how does he justify his job encouraging Indians to emigrate?

"Everyone should work in the United States once," he said. "There's no doubt you benefit from going there."

Technically a contractor, Tagat earns about $10,000 per year for his Fairfax County work -- and he still runs his marketing company. In his office overlooking bustling Richmond Road in Bangalore, a wall-size Fairfax County banner greets visitors. A few steps away sits an idol of the elephant-headed god, Ganesh, remover of obstacles. As he reminisces about his years in the United States, horns from scooters and cars bleep outside Tagat's window, bringing him back to the realities of working in India.

"I'm someone who knows the U.S. I'm someone who knows the tech markets. I'm someone who knows India," he said. "It made my case to Fairfax County."

Not so long ago, the opening of offices such as this one drew ire from Fairfax County's taxpayers and politicians. In addition to India, the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority maintains foreign offices in Germany, Israel, South Korea and Britain. In 2001, the county board of supervisors criticized the authority for spending more to drum up business from overseas than revitalizing older areas of the county.

Fairfax County Supervisor Penelope A. Gross (D-Mason) was among them. But globalization, she said, has softened her stance.

"Every discussion around the country has been that our competitors are not St. Louis and Seattle. Our competitors are all over the world: Shanghai, Delhi, Mumbai," said Gross. "We need to recognize that. Otherwise we are going to be left behind."

Such debates have traveled the 8,500 miles to reach Tagat's ears. He shrugs most criticisms off, saying his role is to win over the companies, and the county's role is to tax them.

"Even if they hire less than 10 employees, Fairfax's business taxes go up and reduces the burden on homeowners," Tagat said. He flipped through his copy of "Doing Business in Fairfax County" -- stacks of it surround his desk -- as if to prove his point.

Authority officials say they don't track tax revenues generated by Indian firms but that an office such as Tagat's will likely pay for itself.

"You look at the things like return on investment dollar to dollar," said Gerald L. Gordon, president of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. "It is usually a negative calculation in the first year, although we have had some initial successes we were not anticipating in the first year. This office costs us far less than the other international offices."

Maryland officials hope for similar returns when they open an office in Bangalore next month. The state has had an office in China for nearly a decade.

Like Tagat, Maryland India Center LLC President Sheila Khatri says she will spend much of her time generating foreign investment in Maryland. She also plans to help Maryland-based companies sell their products and services in India.

"After looking at the Indian market, I see synergies we have between our transportation industries and biotech," said Khatri, who plans to move to Bangalore in about two weeks. "Small businesses can have an employee through me in India."