TDN Weekend

RESTON, VA – Kaleem Shah is liv- ing the American success story. He started with $3,000 and built a company worth many millions, one that works with the intelligence community and is committed to helping keep the U.S. safe. He is so patriotic and so appreciative of what it means to be an American that his racing silks are red, white a blue, with stars and stripes. He has named horses American Gal (Concord Point), American Pride (Closing Argument), Patriot's Voy- age (Awesome Again). He preaches American values, even borrowing his words from a famous children's story that first appeared in the New York Tribune in 1906. "I did it the old fashioned way," he said. "Like the little engine that could...`I think I can, I think I can.'" That's a typical refrain from those who have made it the hard way. But there's nothing ordinary about Shah when it comes to his success story, how it developed and where it came from. He may be an American but is not a product of America. Shah is from India and grew up wanting to fol- low in the path of his father, horse trainer Majeed Shah. But his father did not want any of his children to live the racetrack life and forbade him from going into the family business. Education was what mat- tered most to the elder Shah and he felt the best place to get an ex- cellent education was in America. So Shah came here, and he fell in love. "I am very thankful and very proud to this day that I am an American," said Shah, who has BS in Electrical Engineering from Bangalore Uni- versity, India, a MS in Computer Engineering from Clemson Univer- sity and an MBA in International Finance from The George Wash- ington University. "I could not have achieved the success that I have By BILL FINLEY 19

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