Surjit Singh Babra
Aviation and Travel
Chairman &CEO, SkyLink Capital Corp | Chairman, SkyLink Children’s Charity | Toronto, ON (CANADA)
Ancestry
Sialkot (undivided British India)
Birthplace
Ludhiana, Punjab (India)
Residence
Toronto, ON (CANADA)
FORGING AHEAD: WITH A FIRE IN HIS BELLY
From humble beginning to ruling the sky, he is a down-to-earth person who misses no opportunity to help the needy. What made him spread his wings so far and wide?
Although I had travelled between India and Kenya several times, yet I never knew the air currents would be my karmbhoomi. I was 21 when I first came to London from India for higher studiesin 1971. To pay for my studies and sustain myself, I took a part-time job first in a factory and later with a travel agency, Kang Travel, often working 80 hours a week, earning 30 pence per hour. But the long hours couldn’t tire me out; in fact, I just got hooked onto this field and learnt the nuances. Was this my calling? Not exactly, but this was my path to it, probably. I could sense it – that I wanted big in life! I knew I had to work hard becauseonly hard work pays well.
Life had taught methat only business – and not a job – could take me to where I saw myself in the long run. I started watching out for opportunities and soon found one. I partnered with Channi Bhambra, who was already in travel agency business. He quit his job and together we formed a new travel agency, SkyLink Travel Europe and, from a one-room office in 1973 we started growing step by step. We started representing several airlines and within two years started to open offices in Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester and Amsterdam. Following the UK success, I moved to Toronto in 1979 to establish SkyLink Travel, a similar, independent business across Canada and the USA. Later expanding to Europe and India. I get my inspiration from many mentors such as Richard Branson and Lee Iacocca.
The peace I awaited
I was taking my professional life forward, when a beauty contest in Toronto, in which my sister Kiran was participating, brought a beautiful turn in my life. There I saw Kiran’s friend, Kanwaljit ‘Remy’, walking on the stage and I was simply mesmerised by her beauty. The fact that she was working with a travel agency added more to my interest. I met her again at Kiran’s wedding, and thus started our love life. We got married on 2 September 1982. It was middle of the week; I flew in from New York where I was based and we called in the family and priest and got married at home.
She was extremely aspiring, and I wonder how she left her cushy environment and took a chance on me. She moved to New York and later on to every city where I set up an office.
While earlier I had been travelling a lot taking the business to places, Remy’s presence gave me the sense of home, where I’d return to after any good or bad, success or failure. We have two beautiful daughters, Gagandeep and Manpreet, and a son Pritpal. Brought up so well by their mother, I now admit I should have spent more time with them when she was raising them all alone. She, in fact, often helped me in work too, though I never wanted her to take the stress of the business. I’d have preferred something less stressful for her!
Watching my kids grow, I was often reminded of my childhood. My parents travelled several times between Kenya and India. It was my grandfather who had first moved to East Africa prior to 1925. After marriage my father joined my mother in Kenya and worked as Quantity Surveyor. We were seven siblings and as a child, I participated in a lot of extracurricular activities and sports at school. I remember participating in Shot Put, Javelin, races and participated in all sort of competitions, but never won anything … yet I did not give up participating! I had this passion of participation and the fire of trying my best till I achieved! During school days, I wanted to become a teacher when I grew up, but when I moved to the UK for my higher studies with the need for good income, my new journey began as a businessperson.
What happens when you have achieved well?
From India to Kenya to the UK and then on to USA/Canada, I had my share of good and bad experiences. In 1991, along with my partner Walter Arbib we expanded from travel organisation to the aviation industry and then spread our wings worldwide. Our company provided aircraft and logistical support to the United Nations, Red Cross, World Food Program, the Canadian Armed Forces and many other organisations. With success embracing me, I ventured in many more fields, starting SkyLink Express (a small cargo airline in Canada), SkyLink Security, FareLink, SkyLink Holidays and SkyLink Software Systems.
Analysing the upcoming trend of travel industry, in 2002, we bought the master franchise rights for Dollar Rent-a-Car for Canada, which was built from two location to 31 locations and sold back to the franchisor company. However, my current group, SkyLink Capital Group, came into existence in 2008 and invests in small and medium businesses.
The bigger purpose of life is…
…your duty towards the society. Individually and through SkyLink, I have put in my best efforts in providing food, medical aid, relief supplies and equipment to places struck by natural calamities, like in Nepal, Haiti, Mozambique, etc. At one point, we had 119 aircraft flying for humanitarian and rescue missions that included dangerous and remote places.
I felt humbled when in 2004, the local Sacha Sauda approached me to fly 149 copies of the holy Guru Granth Sahib from Amritsar to Toronto. It was probably the most satisfying moment for me when I landed in Toronto with each Guru Granth Sahib occupying an individual seat in the plane as a living Guru.
Still fresh in my memory is the true-to-life incident of Guru Nanak Dev ji when he was asked to distribute free provisions from the royal store and he went on to distribute uncontrollably. The king ordered a probe into the matter to know how much was thus lost, but when his men reached the store, they found it miraculously full. Though I had heard the story as a child, I later found it symbolic of God siding with the ones who give pure-heartedly.
Taking inspiration from the Guru, my family recently donated as many as 10 truckloads of food to feed the hungry in Ontario as a celebration of 550th birth anniversary of the Guru Nanak and have donated 1100 trees in the Niagara region and will be naming the area as Guru Nanak forest. When in 2014, food processing giant, Heinz, was about to close its Ontario plant, which left hundreds of people unemployed, I along with three friends formed an investor group and bought out the plant. With Guru on our side, we are seeing its grow to great heights with a total strength of 650 employees now.
We are a reasonably spiritual family. Though we often perform sewa, it is in our own ways and not particularly in gurudwaras. We started Langar For the Mind, under which we’d hold non-profit seminars, themed around ‘donate your wisdom – you cannot take it with you’.
Although I have never worked only for awards, yet I have been fortunate to receive quite a handful, including the Mother Teresa Humanitarian of the Year Award, B’nai Brith Canada’s Award of Merit, Gull and Excellence Award, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Transformation Enterprise Award, World Travel Mart Award in the UK, Navigator Award, Bharat Samman Parvasi Award in 2012, Roy MacLaren Humanitarian of the year 2019 award by Canada India Business Council. All these awards and all that I could do for the society are, I believe, because of three reasons: I love people, my craving for self-improvement and my family continuously backing me.
So much have I seen in life, but nothing other than my children can make me happy. Gagandeep, a Masters in Public Health Administration is working with the government. Manpreet, after studying at Vancouver Film School, is into pre- and post-production as filmmaker. Pritpal has done his police foundation course and is now studying forensic science as he wants to join the Police. None of them seem interested in business at the moment. They are free to define success in their own terms in their own fields. I simply want them to do their best and little bit more.
Philosophy
To succeed in life, follow your heart and remain focused when executing your vision.
I love…
Going on vacations, watching movies, gardening, hanging out with family and friends. Yeah, I am a very regular person! Dosti and Mother India are my favourite childhood movies.
Success Mantra
A burning passion to succeed, hard work, planning and integrity together define success to me.
I’d suggest the youth…
To dream big and focus whole-heartedly on achieving their goals.
The world doesn’t know that…
How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is one of my favourite self-improvement books, which I gladly gift to people. I love to gift books to people on my birthdays. I extend my patronage to budding entrepreneurs and it is what I plan to do after retirement.
AKA
King of Raisins | Punjabi-American farmer
Gallery
ISBN : 9788193397695