| Robert Varma likes to call his Stafford Liberty the "Taj Mahal" of service stations. |
| While the 3-year-old building doesn't replicate the splendor of his native India's 17th-century landmark, it does offer much more than the typical American gas station. |
| For starters, there's a post office where customers can mail packages and buy stamps seven days a week, a deli that has gained a reputation for its freshly made steak-and-cheese subs, and a convenience store where the beer is kept 5 degrees colder than the competition's. |
| "People love it," Varma said. "That's what makes them come back to us." |
| Stafford Liberty also has a six-bay service center staffed by master technicians, gas pumps angled to make it easier to get in and out of the property, and a 24-hour car wash with enough lights and security cameras so Varma's wife and daughter would feel safe using it at night. |
| "If I just had a gas station, I'd be bankrupt," said Varma. "You want to make customers think about you, if not for one thing, then another. By having different revenue centers, if one goes down another goes up." |
| Owning and operating Stafford Liberty, located a couple of miles north of the Stafford Regional Airport exit on U.S. 1, is Varma's third career in the United States. |
| The son of an Indian diplomat, he decided to make this country his home after his family arrived in Washington in 1974 when he was 17. They had previously lived in Egypt, Rhodesia, Zambia and Rome. |
| "It was great exposure, but I was a man with no country, no home. When my parents moved back to India, I stayed here. I decided to give my all to this country," said Varma, who became an American citizen in 1978. |
| By that time, he had graduated from high school, changed his first name from Ravinder to Robert, and was studying engineering with a specialization in communications electronics at Howard University. |
| He got a job with Hayman Cash Registers after graduation, and within 15 years had risen to vice president and helped turn the struggling company into a multimillion-dollar business. But success came at personal cost. Supervising 30 people meant he was on call 24 hours a day. |
| "I got burned out," Varma said. "My brother-in-law, who is in the gas-station business, suggested I buy a gas station. I realized it was mainly customer service, which was the same concept [as working for Hayman]. I said, 'I'll try it for one year, and if I don't like it I'll look for something else.'" |
| Varma bought a rundown service station in Fairfax County in 1991 because he liked the location. Business wasn't doing well, so he shut it down for two months to remodel the building. The project included turning the gas station into a Citgo and computerizing it. |
| He also added an inspection station, opened the area's first shuttle service for service-station customers and kept the service-center end of the business open on Saturdays, which none of his competitors were doing. |
| "It was profitable in the first year," Varma said. |
| He finally decided to sell the business after 15 years because he didn't own the land and the owner wanted to extend the lease instead of selling him the property. |
| "I thought, what if he throws me out in five years?" Varma said. |
| He couldn't afford another site in Fairfax, so his brother-in-law offered to sell him some land in Stafford County. Varma drove down to look at the property, but settled on a different location. One advantage was that the 1-acre parcel next door was selling for a good price. He figured that it would be the perfect place to build a companion shopping center. |
| "The idea is to bring in high-traffic businesses so [the shopping center and Stafford Liberty] will fuel each other," he said. |
| Varma's goal was to replicate that template every two years--but the downturn in the economy put that dream on hold. |
| "I've been in [the service-station] business for 18 years, and I've never seen a situation like this," he said. "When it costs people $100 to fill up, they won't come in to buy a sandwich." |
| He has had to cut back on staff, put in more hours and come up with deals like throwing in chips and a soda for free with a $5 foot-long hot dog or selling two bottles of Lipton iced tea for $3. He also offers Vault and Gatorade in his 18-tap drink dispenser because it's cheaper for customers than buying them by the bottle. |
| "I originally thought we'd break even in three years; now it's four," Varma said. "In my books, I'm going to throw out 2008 and plan again." |
| Still, the downturn hasn't kept him from volunteering his time to help others. He was asked to take over the international committee when he joined the Rappahannock Rotary Club, and has expanded the scope of its projects beyond just South America. |
| "Last year we had a $15,000 budget and did six projects," Varma said. "Now we have a $33,000 budget and we're doing 14 projects all over the world." |
| Making contacts with other Rotary Club members to do such things as send supplies to those left homeless by an earthquake in China or build operating theaters where doctors can do cornea transplants for the poor in India is in his blood, he said. |
| "My dad was a diplomat, so I learned a lot from him." |
| Indeed, Varma is most proud of the plaque near the front door of Stafford Liberty that dedicates his business to his parents, Ram Lal and Indira Varma, who now live near him in Fairfax. |
| "I owe everything to them," he said. "Without them, I'd be nothing." |
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| Cathy Jett: (540) 374-5407 |
| Email: cjett@freelancestar.com |
