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Located in Southeast Portland, near 82nd Avenue and Powell Street, Discount World offers affordable quality for its cus-tomers. Food, cosmetics, household goods, cards, gift items, cell phones — the store’s range of products for sale is exten-sive and varied and priced reasonably. Nael Saker, a Palestinian immigrant who was born and raised in Gaza, opened Discount World in October 2009. Its suc-cess is enabling him to open a second store in Beaverton, where he lives with his wife, Nada, and their three children. “The business has done well, partly because of the economy — people are looking for good deals and affordable prices — but also because we try to make a personal connection with each of our customers, to learn their names and listen to their needs,” says Saker.

“These are things that distinguish us from a large chain and, I think, that make the difference for people and encourage them to come back to our store.” Saker measures the store’s success by overall sales, overall profit, how much merchandise each customer purchases and the customer count. He has tailored the products it carries to suit the wants of the customers; for instance, Saker carries certain spices for cooking that appeal to theAsian community that lives in the area. “Every day offers new challenges and opportunities; every customer should be considered a business transaction, so I need to be able to offer them what they want so that they’ll want to continue to do business with me,” says Saker.

Saker is what could be called an “acci-dental entrepreneur.” At the age of 18, he left Gaza and headed to Pakistan, where he studied civil engineering at the University of Lahore. He worked as an engineer for 14 years in United Arab Emirates and owned a prosperous con-struction company in Kuwait. Life was good, until 1991, when at the end of the first Gulf War, Saker was given 24 hours to get out of the country.

“As a Palestinian, I was forced to leave Kuwait quickly, and the United States was the only place I was allowed to immigrate to,” recalls Saker, who fled with a few hundred dollars in his pocket to San Francisco where his wife’s cousin lived. From there, the Saker family moved to Oregon.

Saker was accepted to Portland State University’s graduate school, but with a family to support, the opportunity wasn’t a perfect fit. Instead, he worked at a fast-food restaurant. Soon he was managing the restaurant, then he bought it and soon, eight others like it, including A&W, Taco Time, Figaro’s Pizza and Long John Silver’s. Saker sold the last of his restau-rants in 2007.

“Nothing will compensate for hard work, dedication and passion; you just have to find your goal, believe in yourself and, of course, be proud of what you’re doing,” says Saker. So while he enjoyed engineering, developing a business and then moving on to the next business — from owning restaurants to owning dis-count stores — is what drives Saker cre-atively.

In light of his life experience, Saker