Ragula Bhaskar

For the last one-and-a-half months, Ragula Bhaskar has been spending a considerable amount of time reviewing boards in Utah rather than focusing on his successful company, FatPipe Inc.

But it is the way he ran his company that attracted Utah Governor-Elect Jon Huntsman to recruit him along with others and to make him co-chair of Review Committee of Utah States’ Boards and Commissions which is part of the Huntsman Gubernatorial Transition Team.

Bhaskar and his wife Sachaita invented the router clustering devices that enable reliable, redundant and fast Internet/Wide Area Network (WANs) connections. That was back in 1997, and since then they have built their Utah-based company into a formidable force to reckon with and one that has posted its third quarter of positive revenues.

As he wraps up his work as co-chair, Bhaskar told News India-Times, it has been quite an experience looking at statewide issues. His main responsibilities included evaluating the value, relevance and contribution of the state’s 400 boards and commissions. He focused on each groups’ talent base, budgets and history, documenting his findings in a final report that he will submit on Jan. 3.

“We’ve been looking at these boards to see how they can be made more effective, where there could be cost savings, and at their different functions,” he said. The team will put together its action plan for the governor.

“It’s not like anything I have done before,” Bhaskar admitted, “This was more encompassing than doing a technical report. There were multiple agendas, a lot of department heads to meet. It’s much more wideranging and more social and economic.”

Despite this appointment and the experience, Bhaskar says he will not consider taking up any administrative position in government.

“It is an honor to be asked by Governor Huntsman to participate in government processes in this manner, allowing me to give back to my community in a meaningful way while still maintaining and growing FatPipe Networks,” he noted. Bhaskar is also on the Industrial Advisory Board of the University of Utah’s College of Engineering.

Since 1994, when he started his own consulting company, which he later named FatPipe, Bhaskar’s company has received some $13 million in venture capital funding in addition to his own monies and that from friends and believers.

One article on the online journal Connect notes that FatPipe’s “unique” trait was the frugality with which Bhaskar operated.

“For me personally,” says Bhaskar, “if I take money from you, I have more than just a legal obligation, but also a personal obligation to spend that money even more wisely than I would spend my own money. It’s a personal philosophy.” So no lavish offices, and no five-star hotels while traveling, and the company operates on what Bhaskar terms a “zero” budget.

“The bad thing about giving people a budget,” he says, “is that they feel the allocated money must be spent. At FatPipe, everything must be justified. When you ask me for money, you have to tell me what you will get out of it. We try to be very careful about spending money. If you look at our staff, we don’t have too many vice presidents or bloated departments. When we travel, we stay at Holiday Inn Express.”

That may be why the governor-elect made him co-chair.