14 May 2005
Business in person
BEIRUT: Taking on the biggest project in the history of Lebanon was a good enough reason for easy-going Tony Abi Rached to leave behind a comfortable life in the U.S. at the helm of his own multimillion-dollar engineering company. But it took some subtle persuasion to get him over the "day-to-day torture" of living and working in the homeland he left embroiled in turmoil over 20 years ago.
"You have to bump yourself on every pothole, you have water flowing down the street - one day I was looking out at the Mediterranean and I found that it was brown" Abi Rached rails at his sleek offices in Downtown Beirut.
As CEO of Sannine Zenith, a billion dollar ski resort that should take shape over the next decade on top of the country's celebrated snow capped mountain peaks, Abi Rached is blunt about his love-hate relationship with this country.
"It was shocking to me," he recalls of getting stuck in an elevator three times. "It wasn't very good. But it's a beautiful country," he quips. "I've been to Europe, Asia, the States, but I love this country - you can fall in love with it like that," he says, snapping his fingers.
Abi Rached's brother, the chairman of Sannine Zenith, helped seal the deal: "He likes history, so he wants to be known in history that he did something for this country, and he said 'Tony, you are my younger brother and you need to help me with this mission. And I said OK, here we go."
Still, the jovial 40 something hates to admit he somehow has grown accustomed to lawless roadways and sporadic power outages. He says the chaotic experience has emboldened his vision of Sannine Zenith, which will initially span over 70 million square meters of virgin hill country in the remote mountains above Beirut.
The company recently hired local experts to fly a plane over the site to professionally map out its jagged terrain. And as Abi Rached spoke to The Daily Star on a sunny afternoon last week, international bird experts were examining the affect the project could have on migration pattern: "It never happened before in Lebanon, but we are doing it," he said.
Abi Rached is determined to have Sannine Zenith compete with European resorts by providing top notch road networks and communications infrastructure, independent power generation, wastewater treatment facilities, even a heliport.
In 10 to 15 years, he says the project, which will eventually employ over 10,000, will be able to welcome 21,000 skiers-- far more than Faraya, Lebanon's most popular ski resort at 5,000.
"I'm also going to spend money on building dams because it's a shame that this country has a lot of water, but when you turn on the faucet there is nothing there," he continues.
But last year, talk of building Sannine Zenith sparked fears among environmentalists that it would disrupt one of the country's leading aquifers. Abi Rached is unshaken. He says he's hired a team of environmental experts from the American University of Beirut and changed the master plan several times to accommodate their requests.
The final master plan for the ambitious first phase of the project, encompassing 50 million square meters should be ready by the end of this month, and if politics permit, Abi Rached says he hopes to lay a cornerstone by summer. From there, if all else goes according to plan, the first ski village will be open for business in four years.
"I'm not giving any promises until I know what the outcome of the situation here is, which I think is going to be positive," he said in reference to the string of events over the last two months that have plunged the country into its worst crisis since 1975.
Abi Rached decided against returning to the bloodbath Lebanon had become in the 1980's, opting to continue his studies at Louisiana State University, where he received master's degree in civil and structural engineering. He is registered as a professional engineer in a dozen states.
"I was a little ambitious so I tried to move from one company to another, because I loved promotions. But finally, I found the best way to go is to own your own business," he says with a chuckle.
Abi Rached sold his Seattle-based engineering company before leaving the U.S., upon securing a $400 million contract for a 25 kilometer highway and bridge network in Oregon. He said a legal disclosure agreement prevents him from naming his former company, but is sure his expertise in developing complex infrastructure over a series of lakes and rivers will give him credibility among locals who see his project, which will include an array of three to five star hotels, as a threat.
"The problem is, everyone thinks that I'm going to be putting holes in it," he says in reference to Sannine Mountain, pictured on countless postcards.
Abi Rached is also cool over concerns about political stability and fears that the country could slide back into sectarian strife. A self-described workaholic, he says the overall pace of the project continued uninterrupted over the last two months save for three days of morning after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Experts from Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners, the firm carrying out Sannine's master plan, were testing out the slopes a day before Hariri's killing in a massive explosion not far from Abi Rached's office. He says the Canada-based firm, which is working on slopes for 2010 Winter Games in Whistler, has been urging him to work harder since.
"The Canadian clock is different than the Lebanese clock," he muses.
Sannine Zenith is currently in negotiations with a few Arab Gulf-based companies that may eventually bankroll the mammoth venture. Following the assassination and subsequent bombings, investors adopted a wait and see approach but with withdrawal of Syrian troops in late April, "now they are really positive," he said.
Sannine's developers had been faced with front page headlines last year, when rumors mounted that the Saudi investors owned the project and thus somehow were usurping a large swath of Lebanon. After weeks of controversy and speculation about the project's political masters, the land deed was eventual registered by local authorities in the Zahle township.
Abi Rached calmly shrugs off those events. "Whatever problems we had, I think they were minimal and now behind us. Some people think there is no way a project like this is going to go forward if there is no big name behind it, but there is none. This is a big project, and you are going to hear a lot of rumors. If you build a four storey building in Lebanon you have a problem," he explains.
"When you do something right, you are not afraid of
anything, because you are
doing something right for
this country."
20-second resume
In the Family: wife and two kids
Last Vacation: a year ago in Victoria BC
What was the last book you read? Donald Trump's last book
What car do you drive?
an S500 Mercedes
Hobbies/Sports: tennis and jogging. I exercise everyday.
