Success is bound to follow when you are unstoppable. He was unstoppable, though quite some forces did try stopping him in between. He epitomises this as he has been blazing a trail of magnificent successes, highlighted by service to India and to the Indian community.
After the death of his father, Chittaranjan Sarkar, at the age of 45, Jay’s mother, Usha, moved to Jamshedpur with all her nine children, where others of their extended family lived. The day he breathed his last, his small jewellery store was vandalised and looted. Everything was lost. The large family faced struggles for daily sustenance and education. The eldest of her sons, Ranjit, became the head of the family at the young age of 19. He started working at a monthly wage of Rs. 18, which wasn’t enough to keep them all well-fed. “I remember eating a meal and skipping the other,” remembers Jay. “However, my tuition was free as I was a bright student. From the very start, I wanted to go abroad and make it big.” Jay was accepted into the Regional Engineering College, Ranchi University. “At 23, after a five-year degree course in electrical engineering, I applied for Canadian immigration and arrived here in 1974.”
It was winter when he landed. “Everything was new to me – climate, culture, language, people, lifestyle – everything. Acclimatising to these was also a challenge other than hunting for a job. With my sincere efforts, I got a technical job in Scintrex Ltd., a company manufacturing electrical motors.”
This was just the beginning of a promising success story. Soon, he was offered a job in Concord-based Scintrex Limited’s Quality Assurance and Quality Control Department. “I worked sincerely, applying my brain to do the right thing at the right time. I was promoted to the post of sales officer, then general manager (sales and marketing) and eventually director and a board member within a short span.” He created and took charge of Scintrex’s Nucleonics Division and turned it into the most profitable wing.
The rise and rise
Jay always carried an entrepreneurial zeal. When his manager, Sam Nargolwalla, found another job, he knew how to deal with it. He soon was the manager of the department. So, in 2001, when Scintrex was undergoing a hostile takeover, Jay sent his proposal – which was rejected. A few months later, he sent another proposal – better researched this time. And it was accepted. Jay wasted no time in acquiring the Nucleonics Division, along with his partners. He describes this move as the “challenge of his life. I had to borrow substantially and match up a major part of the investment from my personal resources. I lent my name to the new company and thus Sartrex Power Control Systems Incorporation was born, with its headquarters in Toronto.”
Under his visionary approach and promise of high quality and safety standards, Sartrex has become a world leader in the nuclear control and instrumentation industry with distribution channels in countries all over the world, such as Korea, China, Argentina, Romania, India, Pakistan and most parts of Europe.
“My employees are my family too. This culture has been a positive thing for the company – a differentiator,” he says. Jay actively promotes educational achievement and continuous improvement through his mandatory reimbursement policy. If an employee sees an area wherein a new method can improve processes if implemented, Jay rewards that contribution. “Unless equal and substantial growth does not happen with the people you are working with, your associates, your society, it is expected that the growth in general will be seen as not complete,” he says.
Sartrex is now a huge facility in Concord and provides employment to 50 people, including 25-odd staff members who have been with the company since its establishment.
A trusted aide of the Indian community
Jay measures his success by the number of people he can help, be it by purchasing equipment for old age homes, supporting struggling families or donating to immigrant organisations. Jay has become an inspiration for hundreds of talented young Indians who come to Canada, with dreams of making it big. Among his numerous philanthropic gestures is the training imparted to immigrants to ease their transition and raise their capabilities to compete in Canada’s labour force.
Jay was awarded the P. Eng. designation by the Professional Engineers, the licensing and regulating body for professional engineering in Ontario. There are numerous awards in his kitty. “I was given the Entrepreneur of the Year award by the West Bengal government, received the Best Entrepreneur award in Doha, Qatar, and the Vaughan Chamber of Commerce honoured me with the Citizenship Award.” He heads several community organisations and participates in academic, cultural and social activities. “I am a life member of the Canadian Nuclear Society and was the president of the Prabasi Bengali Cultural Association and Bengali Parishad. I have been a keynote speaker at many business forums, entrepreneurs’ meetings, corporate assemblies in Canada and abroad.”
Jay has also received two distinguished life-time achievement awards for community service and entrepreneurship and was nominated for the glorious Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship. Every year, he donates over $100,000 to Indo-Canadian organisations, non-profit organisations, cultural bodies, hospitals, schools, the Canadian Cancer Society, the University of Toronto, among others.
“I personally get involved in charities and NGOs in not only Canada but across the whole world where there is a need for assistance, donations, contribution and consideration. Having said that, I would keep on continuing with this noble work till my mortal life remains.”
With the backing of family
Jay, when in college, often went to his brother’s jewellery store. This extremely shy guy once saw a young girl in her school uniform. That was the day that he decided on his life partner. Quite active in community service, everyone knew him. For the celebration of Durga Puja (a nine-day long Indian festival), he led the donation drive and went to her home everyday. As he found a job and left India, the two started growing closer and on his first trip back home, her mother insisted on their marriage. He had awaited this moment for quite some years now.
Chitra and Jay got married on 24 January 1976 and the two went to Canada. There, she worked for two years and then decided to quit once the two readied themselves to welcome their daughter, Tina, in 1982, and son, Shawn, in 1984.
Both the kids were single-handedly nurtured by Chitra. Both share his zeal for education, self-learning, discipline and culture. Jay has always believed that sports and soft skills teach you what textbooks do not. Tina has expertise in Bharatanatyam, sings well and plays tennis. She has been managing Sartrex’s finances for over eight years now. Her husband, Jason Andrews, is a director of operations and they have two kids, Maliyah (6) and Jaylen (3). Shawn, a science graduate and an MBA from Canada’s top-ranked Schulich School of Business, has an interest in sports like tennis, golf, soccer, etc. Now Sartrex’s Executive Vice President, he is married to Shibani, and the two have a daughter, Shyla (3).
Jay has always pursued his passion for acting and done a lot of theatre as the leading actor and likes to sing and play golf. He attributes his peaceful family life and successful career to Chitra, whom he calls the family anchor. “I have fulfilled my dreams, thanks to hard work, smart work and the support of my wife and family. Now I’m here to help.”
His desire is to promote education in India and develop a new-age business curriculum that emphasises social media, sales and strategic management to inspire the younger generation to think differently about the way businesses operate in the contemporary global marketplace. He has been the chairman of the North American Bengali Conference twice, in 2008 and 2013. Having served as the president of Pravasi Bengali Cultural Association, he has now been made the chairman. He also is the chairman of the Kalibadi temple, the largest in Toronto, for the last four years.
He came to Canada with $10. His patience, perseverance and out-of-the-box thinking have brought him where he stands today.