Growing up in a conservative household in Surat, Patel dreamed of attending English-speaking school. Less than a year after being allowed to enroll, at age 16, Patel moved across the ocean to join her husband, Pravin, in Oakland, where Patel began working in a family-owned hotel.

Despite having less than a year of English education and no other formal training or hospitality experience, Patel was driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and a curious nature. She quickly took to the business, helping in the hotel office and learning the ins-and-outs of running a hotel. She and Pravin were soon managing a second family property.

2004 - First Indian woman to chair a national or state lodging association in the United States, the California Lodging Industry Association.

2016 - Became first industry-elected chair of the nation’s biggest destination marketing organization, Visit California.

It was in 1985 when Patel sowed the seeds of what would become her own hospitality enterprise. With help from her family, she and Pravin acquired the land on which they would build their first hotel, The Regency Inn. It became the first jewel in the crown of their new company, Ridgemont Hospitality.

Today, the family-owned and -operated company runs Oakland’s Inn at Temescal, Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hotel Vue in Mountain View, and a 110-room Hampton Inn in the heart of downtown Oakland, which was the first new hotel in downtown Oakland in years.