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By Thomas P. Wyman, Journalist
Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana
April 4, 2003
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Fueled by ambition and frustrated by discrimination, Alexander Krivozus and
Edward Pekarsky took a great leap.
Standing at the cusp of adulthood in the late 1980s, the two bounded
westward across seven time zones (from Ukraine) and landed in a Midwest
American city.
There the clocks ran hours behind their Ukraine hometowns (Odessa and
Dnepropetrovsky)-- but opportunities ran light years ahead of the closed
society in what was then the Soviet Union.
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Edward Pekarsky founded Micro X-Press with fellow Ukrainian Alexander
Krivozus. "Survival, more than anything else," is behind the success of his
business
Charlie Nye / staff photo
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Krivozus, now 30, and Pekarsky, 32, have made the most of it in a relatively
short time.
Ten years ago, they founded a mail-order computer and parts business in
Indianapolis, naming it Micro X-Press.
They started from scratch -- in a field jammed with scratch-and-claw
competitors and offering only razor-thin profit margins -- and survived.
Despite the lengthy spending drought that has parched the information
technology business, Micro X-Press counts $20 million a year in revenue.
"It's been slow, but it's been in the black, not in the red," says Pekarsky.
And it's been more success than either man might have expected from living
out their lives in Ukraine.
Asked why he left his home in Odessa, a busy Black Sea port city, for a new
life in a strange land, Pekarsky shrugs. "Just opportunity," he replies. "I
didn't see any opportunity there."
Krivozus, who favors simple, solid-color pullovers to Pekarsky's colorfully
patterned shirts and sweaters, is more blunt about why he left Ukraine with
his parents and sisters.
"We're all Jews," he says, his fluent English lightly accented by his native
Russian. "They don't like us there too much."
These two men, then, were among more than 1 million Jews who emigrated
from the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
At one time labeled "refuseniks" because Soviet authorities refused to allow
them to leave, Jews fled Soviet anti-Semitism in growing numbers before the
collapse of communism.
Tough emigration rules finally were relaxed after the 1986 Iceland summit
meeting between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail
Gorbachev, says Marsha Goldstone, executive director of the Jewish
Community Relations Council of Indianapolis.
"Jews were able to leave," she said.
And so Krivozus and Pekarsky left. But only after paying 750 rubles --
nearly $500 -- as a fee for renouncing their citizenship.
"You have to pay to lose your citizenship," says Krivozus, still disgusted.
"It sounds ridiculous, but that's it."
He made his way to Vienna, on to Italy and finally to Cleveland, where the
city's Jewish Federation -- an organization active in aiding Soviet Jewish
immigrants -- helped him get settled.
In an English-language class in Cleveland, Krivozus -- who had abandoned
photography studies in Ukraine -- met Pekarsky, a trained radio and
television technician. They discovered they shared the story of leaving
Ukraine to restart life in the United States.
Both found jobs at a Cleveland computer supply company, then decided to
strike out on their own.
"When you work with a company, and you see you can do it yourself,"
Krivozus says, "why work for somebody else?"
Krivozus describes himself as a born seller. Pekarsky brought his technical
expertise to the business table. Together, they sat down with a map and
economic statistics to find a market. They settled on Indianapolis.
"I didn't know Indianapolis that well, except for the Indianapolis 500,"
Krivozus says.
But Indianapolis had what the two entrepreneurs wanted: a central location,
a number of large businesses as potential customers, and relatively little
competition.
From its business office on West 78th Street on the Northwestside, Micro
X-Press sells hard drives, monitors, modems and other equipment to
tech-savvy customers in business, government and education. The 25-
employee company does most of its selling through its Web site.
The company succeeds, says customer Jerry Grubbs, because it sells
well-marketed brands such as Intel, and because customers trust the people
who run the operation.
"They're stand-up guys," says Grubbs, whose company, netKaizen, does
network engineering and consulting. "It's easy for unscrupulous people in a
competitive situation to really start cutting corners."
Krivozus credits success to something more prosaic: inventory control.
"A lot of people went out of business, not because they're doing bad
business, or they have bad customer service," he says. "Their overstock
killed them. The price drops are so dramatic. If you're stuck in something
that's not moving, you're losing money."
Pekarsky sees their success rooted in something still more basic. "Survival,
more than anything else," he says. "We have no way back."
Economic survival has always been a top priority of newly landed immigrants.
A century ago, many Jewish immigrants to the United States found a foothold
in New York City and the garment trade, says John Bodnar, chairman of the
history department at Indiana University and an expert in American cultural
history.
Many lived in poverty, their families prospering only as succeeding
generations became better-educated and found better-paying work.
Others, perhaps having better connections and resources, launched
prosperous businesses almost immediately.
"Immigrants are very good at finding the openings," unserved niche markets
that can be exploited quickly for profit, Bodnar says.
Successful immigrant entrepreneurs were more likely to have come from
cities, rather than rural areas, he says. Urban dwellers were more familiar
with the culture of commerce.
That profile fits both Pekarsky, from Odessa, and Krivozus, from
Dnepropetrovsk, an industrial city.
Immigrants' startup businesses, though, usually serve the immediate
community of fellow immigrants, Bodnar says.
Micro X-Press, on the other hand, ships products worldwide. The
international market offered instantly by the Internet is changing business
models for immigrants as well.
Five thousand miles from Ukraine, Pekarsky and Krivozus are just as far
removed from their 1993 startup days.
In those earlier times, Krivozus shared a two-bedroom apartment in Castleton
with Pekarsky and his wife, Aline. When Krivozus needed a car, he borrowed
the Pekarskys' modest Nissan Sentra.
When they weren't sleeping, the two were working. After long days of filling
and shipping computer orders, they spent weekends driving to out-of-town
computer trade shows to hawk their wares.
Now their workweeks are confined mostly to office hours -- a 55-hour,
six-day week that sounds grueling but at least allows them one day off each
week.
The Pekarskys, who since have started a family -- a boy and a girl -- have a
comfortable home in Zionsville. Krivozus, a bachelor, bought a home in
Carmel. So did his father, Igor, with whom he emigrated from Ukraine and
who works at Micro X-Press. And they all have their own cars.
Krivozus returns to Ukraine annually for visits, but he has no plans to
resume his life there.
"The only country in the world (where) they don't care who you are . . . is
the United States," he says. "There's no other place on earth where you can
do well, no matter what nationality you are. I mean, that's a fact." (Micro
X-Press is located at 5407 W. 78th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana.)
Thomas P. Wyman, Journalist, thomas.wyman@indystar.com
Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 2003
http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/5/033580-1185-031.html
For personal and academic use only.
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