Church remains central to their lives
When an earthquake killed 25,000 people and left 500,000 homeless in Armenia in 1988, Thomas Babigian bought a ticket and flew to Spitak to help rebuild.
``It was pretty gut-wrenching," said Babigian, who was 28 at the time .
For five weeks, he worked 11-hour days erecting homes while living in a tent. The trip was arranged through the Armenian Church Youth Organization of America and the St. James Armenian Apostolic Church.
The Watertown church -- now marking its 75th anniversary -- has played a pivotal role in Babigian's life and that of the large Armenian community in Boston's western suburbs.
This year, Babigian, his twin brother, Peter, and younger brother, Vasken, are spearheading the church's annual bazaar, which takes place next weekend.
Growing up in Waltham, the three brothers did not learn to speak English until they were nearly 6 years old, although their parents, Garabed and Joan, were Massachusetts natives.
``Our grandparents on both sides spoke only Armenian, so it was important to all of us that we were able to communicate with them," said Peter, 46, who works in the machine manufacturing business and lives in Waltham with his wife, Gloria, and their three children.
``I remember kids laughing at us and saying, `There are the Babigian boys -- they can't speak English,' " said Vasken , a 38-year-old real estate attorney in Watertown.
The brothers long ago shed their childhood embarrassment and are grateful that they grew up steeped in their Armenian culture. Besides their family, they say, they have St. James to thank.
With a community of 2,500 families, it is one of the largest Armenian churches in the United States.
The brothers' mother, who was raised in Watertown, has attended the church for 70 years.
``At 17 and 18, when `normal kids' wanted to go to the beach, I was here trying to learn the service in Armenian," said Peter. ``It gave me religious and traditional fulfillment."
Soon after he was ordained a sub deacon and began singing in the choir, which he still does. He is also the fifth-grade acolyte director.
Thomas, a mortgage broker who lives in Westford with his wife, Linda, thinks nothing of making the half-hour commute to take their 6-year-old son to Sunday school at St. James. ``I want to give him the same experience, since it was so important to me," he said.
The brothers share the same olive skin and big dark eyes. They also share an energy level that might be mistaken for one espresso too many, but it comes in handy as they oversee preparations for next weekend's bazaar.
It will feature traditional foods like bourma, a rolled phyllo dough with nuts, and manti, Armenian ravioli filled with meat; a live auction, where people can bid on a Caribbean cruise with Armenians from around the nation; and, in honor of the anniversary, a raffle prize of $7,500 .
The church is their second home, they say.
In advance of its 75th anniversary, the brothers and their families donated a 7-foot gold cross that sits on top of the church. Created at SRP Sign Corp. in Waltham, it is constructed of cast aluminum with 23 -karat gold leafing. It took six months to make and was consecrated and erected in 2004.
Vasken and his wife, Christina, are expecting their first child. They plan to teach the baby to speak Armenian and English.
The St. James Church Bazaar is 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more on the church, visit sthagop.com.
MEDICAL HELP IS A CLICK AWAY -- Sandeep Shah got his start in technology by fixing fuses in his boyhood home . Today, he operates a database that shoots lifesaving information to handheld devices on the battlefield in Iraq.
The 46-year-old Northborough resident is the founder and president of Skyscape, a cyberspace clearinghouse of medical data. The information can be downloaded to portable devises such as Blackberrys and Treos, in some cases automatically as new studies are released. Subscribers store the data in their own equipment so they can access it even if they can't connect to the Internet.
Patricia Hasen, a Navy flight nurse deployed to Iraq in 2004, said she referred to Skyscape many times, even when she was in the air.
``There were a lot of head trauma patients," said Hasen, who is from Houston. ``We had to manipulate their blood pressure while they were on ventilators and monitor" heart rate problems. With the tap of the stylus, Hasen used Skyscape to access such information as drug doses and options for sedation.
Shah has partnered with medical publishers such as McGraw Hill and organizations such as the American College of Cardiology to obtain the latest reports on trial studies, treatment options, and drug interactions.
The information is plugged in to Skyscape's database and organized into 25 specialties, such as anesthesiology, neurology, and pediatrics, so subscribers can create their own digital libraries.
This information enables a doctor to research the symptoms of a disease from one source, then find the best medications to treat it from another source.
As of last week, more than 600,000 had subscribed to Skyscape. Other companies offer similar services, but of different scope, such as Epocrates, which is primarily a drug guide, and Thompson Clinical Xpert, which has a much smaller subscriber base.
Last year Shah expanded his target market to include nurses and physician assistants, who have their own unique needs. Some colleges use the service instead of textbooks.
``We include a subscription to Skyscape in our lab fees," said Fran Cornelius, assistant professor at Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions.
Shah was raised in India, where one of his chores was replacing the crude wire fuses when they blew in his family's home. He also tinkered with the family's motor scooter.
``I was replacing the carburetor before I was old enough to drive it," he said.
Shah received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's in computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, a university modeled after MIT.
After working two years in India and two years in the Middle East, he moved to the United States in 1988 to work for Wang Laboratories. There he designed operating systems for graphic technology that used a stylus rather than a keyboard.
As he watched computers get smaller, he became interested in pursuing ways to exploit handheld technology.
He left Wang and in 1993 founded K-2 Technologies, named after the second-highest mountain, K-2 in the Himalayas, and his two children, whose names both begin with K.
Shah didn't have to look far to find a potential market.
``My wife is a doctor and was doing her residency," he said.
She was experiencing ``all of the pains that I needed to solve: ready access to information as she was lugging around many books."
Shah spent 20-hour days working on the program and his weekends in the car, driving between Philadelphia, where his wife was doing a cardiology fellowship, and New Hampshire, where he lived with their children.
``For three years we spent 40 out of 52 weekends" shuttling between states, he said.
``We wanted to make sure the children saw" their mother and that ``we bonded as a family."
Once Shah had developed the software, he linked up with Steve Lapkoff, a researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a fellow member of the Boston Computer Society .
``We wanted to prove that this idea had a merit," said Shah.
In 1994, they pitched the idea to
Shah and Lapkoff tried out the device with residents at Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General hospitals. They tracked how many times a day the program was opened and how long it was used.
The first basic programs were sold in 1994, and the name was changed to Skyscape in 2000.
Shah now has 95 employees: 40 in Marlborough, 50 in India, and salespeople in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida.
Shah's wife, Neeta, is a cardiologist at the Fallon Clinic in Worcester.
She could also be his pitchman.
No longer does she have to shuttle back and forth to her office computer, spend time paging through the Physicians Desk Reference book, or wait on hold for a pharmacist.
``I'm able to do the research without leaving the patient's side," she said.
For more on Skyscape log on to skyscape.com.
Have a suggestion for the People column? E-mail Susan Chaityn Lebovits at lebovits@ globe.com. 
