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Cardiologist seeks unity, impact as a giving force

Philanthropist Dr. Kiran Patel is changing the face of local giving by connecting Tampa to the wider world.

By DAVID KARP
Published May 30, 2005

TAMPA - The gala last December could have been like most charity fundraisers: black-tie, with a dinner of prime rib.

But people who went to the Cultural Carousel Ball use the same word to describe it: different.

For Tampa, really different.

In one part of the India Cultural Center, people ate Chinese lo mein out of takeout boxes. In another, they dined on dried fruits and cheese from Nepal. A musician played the didgeridoo. The Florida Orchestra performed world music.

David Fischer, who as president of the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay attends a lot of charity events, remembers feeling transported to a different place.

"When you pulled in there that night, you'd think you were in Bombay," he said.

The force pulling old Tampa and new Tampa together that night was Dr. Kiran Patel.

Patel, a cardiologist and former health care executive who has become one of the state's leading philanthropists, is changing the face of giving in the Tampa Bay area.

Not just by giving a lot - which he does - but by giving to causes that connect Tampa to the wider world.

"He looks at problems in a global way and sees how he can have the most impact on the most people," said Martin Silbiger, a friend and former dean of the University of South Florida medical school. "He has much more of a world view than I do because of his background and experience."

This month, Patel pledged $18.5-million to build the Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions at USF. In 2002, he wrote a check for $5-million to build the Dr. Pallavi Patel School for Performing Arts at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. This year, he gave $3-million for a new heart research institute at University Community Hospital.

And there are the five hospitals he has founded in his native India, the school to educate rural Indian children, the scholarships for USF medical students, the HIV education program he supports, the 23 African children flown overseas for heart surgery at no cost, the Dr. Pallavi Patel Pediatric Care Center at USF, and the Dr. Kiran Patel Charter School.

Already, USF board of trustees chairman Dick Beard is using Patel's most recent gift to prod other trustees to dig deeper into their wallets. At a recent ceremony, Beard singled out one trustee in the audience who he said could donate more. "I'm expecting everyone to step up," Beard said.

* * *

Sitting in his office at the Patel Foundation for Global Understanding, Patel, 56, is surrounded by signs of his success. His chairs are white leather. His desk looks out onto Tampa Bay.

But for a man with so much wealth, Patel talks a lot about how uncomfortable he is spending money on himself. "I feel guilty," he said.

Before he flies, he trolls the Internet for discount fares. He recalls traveling with his wife to North Carolina when she was taking a medical board exam. They didn't book a room, figuring they could find a cheaper hotel once there. But because of a conference, only one room was left. The owner wanted $100.

Patel went outside to think it over. By the time he decided to splurge, the room was gone. "We had to spend the night in the cold in the parking lot," he said, laughing about it now.

He says his frugality comes from his upbringing in Africa, where he was raised in a middle-class home. His father, who did not finish college, left his native India to find a better life in Zambia, where the four Patel children were taught the value of hard work. It was also where Patel gained his appreciation for community. Since the nation was divided into three classes - whites, blacks and browns - Indians had to depend on each other, he says.

When a neighbor died, leaving his family nearly bankrupt, Patel's father took over the neighbor's business to keep the widow together with her children. Patel, then 16, spent Saturdays working at a bakery to help.

Why did his father do it? Speaking about it today, Patel chokes up. He reaches for a handkerchief to wipe away tears. "I think when you are in a community, you are always close," he said.

When Patel returned to India for medical school, he found himself again an outsider. Though born an Indian, he was raised an African. Indians saw him as a foreigner. Some resented the family's wealth. Still, during his first year in medical school, Patel was elected president of the student association. Both Indians and foreigners respected him, he said.

That's when he started seeing another medical student, Pallavi, who belonged to a different caste. In India, men were expected to meet their bride through an arranged marriage. They were not supposed to date, especially not out of their caste. "It is not moral to date," Patel explained.

His father asked Patel if he had compromised himself and felt obliged to marry Pallavi. No, he said, they were in love.

Though not enthusiastic, his father accepted his choice.

When the couple moved to the United States in 1976, they did not expect to stay long. Patel thought he would make $100,000, then return to India. He worried that the ills of America - drinking, television, spiritual corruption - would infect his family. He did not want money to devour them.

In Tampa, he recalled how his son, then a child, asked one day: Dad, am I rich? "No," Patel replied. " "I am rich."

He sent his children to Berkeley Preparatory School, a private school in Tampa where kids drive BMWs and wear designer clothes. Patel would not let his children grow accustomed to the materialism there, he said. He shopped for all of their clothes at Kmart.

"I did not want to spoil them," he said.

* * *

For a man who says he does not covet money, Patel has spent a lifetime working furiously to amass it. Even now, when he could retire, he still works long days. Patel built his fortune by turning a small HMO into a $1-billion business with 400,000 members. He sold the company, Wellcare, in 2002, about a year and a half before it went public.

He has since bought a software company that sells programs to make physicians more efficient and spent $40-million on beachfront property in Clearwater, where he plans to build a hotel and condominiums. He also is financing a developer who wants to transform Tampa's depressed Central Park neighborhood into a mixed-income community.

He admits he's gotten used to some luxuries. His weaknesses are cars; he has owned a gold Mercedes Benz, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. The county property appraiser estimates the market value of his lakefront Carrollwood house at about $1.1-million. Recently, he said, he bought some planes. He does not fly.

"It's more for ego," he said.

His motivation, though, is not money for its own sake. How many cars can you drive, he asks.

"I feel there is a difference between being rich and feeling rich," Patel said.

As his wealth has grown, he has enlarged his giving. At first, he focused on donating to India and Tampa's Indian community. Then he started giving to a wider range of institutions.

"With my money, I have had an impact," he says. "What good would have come with that money in my bank account?"

Some have questioned why Patel puts his family name on so many buildings. In a 2001 interview, Patel said he doesn't do it for ego. By making the Patel name prominent, he said, he is showing Tampa how the Indian community contributes to the city.

Tampa has embraced him more warmly than he could have imagined, he said: "The community has been more than generous. They have been very kind."

Still, Patel will never be the kind of old money insider who belongs to Ye Mystic Krewe or lunches at the Palma Ceia Country Club. He is a vegetarian who doesn't drink.

He said he can't imagine ever spending thousands of dollars just to join a club.

--Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified May 30, 2005, 01:39:09]