chaldean chamber Awards
chaldean chamber Awards Left: “Uncle Joe” Sesi launched the dealership. Top: The New Center Market opened in the early 1930s. driven to succeed Car dealer Joseph Sesi is Business Person of the Year By Ken Marten Have you driven a Ford lately? How about a Lincoln? Enough people have to keep the Ann Arbor automobile dealership, Sesi Lincoln, in business for more than 60 years. And now the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce has honored dealership owner Joseph A. Sesi by naming him 2012 Business Person of the Year. “I’m privileged to get an award like this,” said Sesi, 58. “We’re a longtime business; we’ve been around since 1946. It’s a unique business within the Chaldean community. “It was a surprise, getting the award,” he added. “It’s really a family honor that starts with my uncle.” Sesi’s Uncle Joe moved to the United States from Iraq as a teenager in 1920. He was lured to Detroit by auto mogul Henry Ford’s famous “five-dollars-a-day” promise to workers on the automobile assembly line. But Uncle Joe didn’t land an auto factory job. He found work instead at the Wonder Bread factory as a delivery boy for Chaldean grocers. “There weren’t many Chaldeans in Detroit at that time – just five or six families,” Sesi said. “They all lived together in a home on Orleans near Jefferson.” But Uncle Joe’s destiny was tied to cars. In the early 1930s, during the Great Depression, he opened New Center Market in the shadow of the Joseph Sesi newly built Fisher Building. Customers ranged from working-class tradesmen who installed the ornate details of the Fisher Building, to upper-class automotive executives. That’s where Uncle Joe met lifelong friend and future business partner Alan Chapel – “they were inseparable,” Sesi recalled – who introduced him to Henry Ford. “He met Mr. Ford and they photo by David Reed formed a great friendship through the Depression and World War II,” Sesi said. “Uncle Joe had a very infectious personality. He had lots of charisma. People were naturally drawn to him. He had vision and he took a lot of risks, although in a responsible way.” Ford was so impressed with the men and the market that immediately following the conclusion of the war in 1945, he gave them the opportunity at an assembly plant in downtown Ypsilanti that manufactured synchronized rings and roller bearings. Both men worked around the clock running the machines during a labor strike that year; Ford was again wowed by their efforts and offered them a car dealership. Chapel Motors opened its doors in 1946, offering Lincolns and Mercurys in the same building as the plant. The dealership occupied the front half and the factory occupied the back. Chapel died in the mid- 1950s and Uncle Joe bought his interest from Chapel’s widow, then changed the name to Sesi Lincoln Mercury. “Today, we’re the beneficiaries of all his hard work, so we’re grateful for that,” Sesi said. The younger Sesi began benefiting at the dealership in 1968 at age 14, having arrived in the United States with his parents and eight siblings five years earlier. By then, the business had grown into one of the nation’s largest Lincoln Mercury dealers. Sesi started on the bottom of the dealership ladder and held every position over the years, from porter to salesman. He worked throughout college while earning a degree in accounting and finance from Eastern Michigan University. 42 CHALDEAN NEWS MARCH 2012
health care with dignity Chaldean physician group is Humanitarian of the Year By Joyce Wiswell Uncle Joe died in 1999. He had no children and ownership passed to his nephew and namesake. In 2001, the business acquired the nearby Volvo and Mazda and Lincoln Mercury dealerships; in 2004, Sesi Lincoln moved to its present location on Jackson Road in Ann Arbor, with all three makes under one roof. (Ford ended the Mercury line last year.) “There’s no magic bullet to business success,” Sesi said. “I still believe to this day that the dealership business is a relationship business. You build lifetime relationships with your customers. You take care of your customers and your employees. It’s all about hard work, providing great service, and getting involved in the community. There’s no substitute for integrity.” For many years, Sesi Lincoln helped fund drivers’ education programs at various public schools until such programs were canceled or privatized. Sesi also sits on the board of directors for the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society and the Bank of Ann Arbor. For more than two decades, he ran the Detroit area Lincoln Dealers Advertising Fund. The dealership has 68 full-time employees and remains one of the largest Lincoln dealers in the country. “Most of my employees have been with us 30 or 40 years,” Sesi said. “Having a stable workforce is really important. We’ve been blessed to have so many supportive and dedicated employees.” Sesi, who lives in Ann Arbor with his wife Yvonne and daughter Katie, drives a Lincoln Navigator. For anyone who may be car-shopping, he offers this advice: “The domestic brands are very strong in this area. But frankly, the domestic car companies today, and Ford in particular, have always built a great car. Domestic cars today are as good as any car in the world.” Above: Dr. Nahid Elyas Left: Project Bismutha’s Amanda Alkatib and Jennifer Shamoun Those who are financially struggling and lack insurance still have every right to quality health care. That’s the belief of Nahid Elyas, M.D., the driving force behind the Chaldean American Association of Health Professionals (CAAHP) and Project Bismutha – named Humanitarians of the Year by the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce. Elyas established CAAHP to provide a professional forum to educate Chaldean health care providers and give them the opportunity to interact and network. From that, Project Bismutha (which means “healing”) was born in 2010. “We started it for two reasons,” said Elyas. “First, the need in our community is probably more than any other. Thousands of people are moving here from back home and don’t have insurance. And we believe in our community, that it can deliver and support such programs.” Project Bismutha began in Farmington Hills but really took off once it moved to Sterling Heights, where many refugees live, in March 2011. The program shares office space with the Chaldean Community Foundation’s Refugee Acculturation and Sustainability Training on 15 Mile and Ryan. After clients are screened financially and determined to meet Michigan’s poverty guidelines, they get an appointment with a physician whose office is close to home. “Our program is different from a free clinic,” Elyas said. “At a clinic you are treated as a person without insurance. In our program, the patient sees the primary doctor and has a continuity of care. They have a chart like any other patient. This gives some dignity and respect to those without insurance.” The program has nearly 260 patients who are helped by 33 physicians and three pharmacists. “In 2012 we expect this number to double or triple,” Elyas said. “We expect to get more physicians to join and to be able to provide more medical services like X-rays and CAT scans.” Bismutha receives no government funding. It is run under the auspices of the Chaldean Community Foundation, which also provides financial support. St. John Providence Hospital donates ,000 worth of lab work each year and individuals also contribute. Amanda Alkatib, Project Bismutha’s program manager, calls her job “personally very rewarding.” “It benefits you as much as the people you serve,” she said. “This is the community that we live in and it is up to us to take care of it, but the real heroes are our dedicated doctors.” Client Maha Abid also gives high marks to the participating physicians. “Project Bismutha has been very good to me. Because of this program, I am in better health, and I am very thankful for the excellent care delivered by Dr. Raad Kasmikha,” she said. “He’s the best doctor!” Winning the chamber award can only help Project Bismutha, Elyas said. “We are proud, we are humbled beyond any measure to receive this award,” he said. “We are really very excited – this recognition will help increase awareness and support of this program.” MARCH 2012 CHALDEAN NEWS 43
