Immigrant finds Brentwood a “blessing” Dry utility consultant sets up business, home as part of goals

CHRIS CAMPOS

Khalid Tarrar’s family fled the Russian invasion of Afghanistan when he was barely nine years old. The pain and hard travel of immigration to the United States lead to a bright new horizon for the young Khalid, who went on to graduate from San Jose State in 1994 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a dream of new goals.

After working for AT&T and Precision Planning, Tarrar set off on his own in 2005 establishing Tarrar Utility Consultants in Brentwood.

The road leading to his Brentwood headquarters led this Muslim refugee to a former site of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church at 813 First St. For another ironic twist, he bought the property in a bankruptcy auction of Alain Patel Realtors, which had earlier bought the building from the church.

“It’s been a blessing for us,” Tarrar said recently. When deciding where to locate his home office, “Brentwood came out on top for it’s small-town feeling and emphasize on family,” he said,

Tarrar eventually expanded to 32 employees who specialize in “dry utility” design projects, which include: planning and consulting, joint trench composites, PG&E gas and electric designs, due diligence, cost estimates and contractor bidding assistance.

For the past year his firm has been building an expansion of the headquarters facility adding another 5,000 square feet of and two more floors of office space behind the original church along Maple Street. Tarrar expects the building addition to be finished in November.

Since starting in 2005, the firm expanded to include offices in San