Passing of Gopal Savjani and Rao Ratnala

Houston: The Houston Indo-American community was saddened in recent days with the passing of two community stalwarts: Biotech CEO Gopal Savjani and Engineering executive Rao Ratnala.

The American Society of Indian Engineers (ASIE) announced the passing of Mr. Ratnala on October 11.

Ratnala came to the United States in 1962 as a student and received his MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Virginia. After project experience with Brown & Root, he founded Ratnala Engineering in the early 1980s and later expanded to become Ratnala & Bahl. The firm was one of the largest local municipal engineering consulting firms in Houston with nearly 100 employees at its peak.

A trailblazer in the civic and political arenas, Ratnala was a founding member of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston, major benefactor of the American Society of Indian Engineers, and mainstay of the Indo-American Political Action Committee.

Dr. Gopal Savjani passed away on October 24. CEO and founder of Savjani Inc. in 1990, whose principal activities included real estate leasing and financial consulting services. He is the former owner of Diagnostic Systems Laboratories in Clear Lake City. and later Ansh Laboratories. He immigrated to the United States in 1968 to attend graduate school in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California in Berkeley.

Dr. Savjani was a trustee of India House as well as a leading board member of the Indo-American Chamber of Greater Houston and Pratham USA.