A conversation with ‘Dino’ Teppara, Sr. Legislative Assistant to Rep. Wilson
By Vasantha Arora

Sandeep ‘Dino’ Teppara, left, with Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC, the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. Teppara is an attorney and senior legislative assistant to Rep. Wilson.

Sandeep ‘Dino Teppara is known as the “the twenty-four hours seven days a week” guy on Capitol Hill. Since 2001, he has been the attorney/senior legislative assistant to Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), the co-chair for the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.

Dino says: “I do both domestic and foreign policy work for Congressman Wilson. However most of the time is spent serving the Congressman’s constituents. We are constantly monitoring legislation and issues via e-mail with other Congressional offices and think tanks. I have learned from the Congressman that it is important to have anand accessible office.”

Asked about Joe Wilson’s interest in Indian Americans, Dino says the Congressman has had a very long-term relationship with Indian Americans in South Carolina. “With tourism being the number one industry in South Carolina and approximately 40 percent of hotel and motel owners in our state being Indian American, our community plays an extremely important role in the state economy. Also, the very first financial contributors to his state senate race were Indian Americans.”

“So as a real estate attorney, Joe Wilson has worked for 30 years with our community performing hotel and motel closings. He also performed legal work for many community members who branched out in other areas of small business ownership, including restaurants, gas stations, and convenience stores. He did all the legal work pro bono to establish the first Hindu temple in the state of South Carolina. He was also the first S.C. state senator to hire an Indian American as an intern and now is one of the first Republican Congressmen to hire a permanent Indian-American staffer, Dino told News India-Times in an interview.

“I ran into then State Senator Joe Wilson, who was running for Congress, at the India Independence Day festival in Columbia, South Carolina in August 2001. The Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of South Carolina organize the yearly event, and I served on their executive committee that year. I helped organize the event and wrote the souvenir. I made a short speech on stage, and afterward, Wilson approached me and remarked how my speech was a continuation of a high school paper he had written on India. I ended up volunteering for his campaign for nearly three months during the special election, and after he was overwhelmingly elected as Congressman in December 2001, he offered me a position in Washington, D.C., and I have been with him ever since.”

Dino took his B.A. degree in Philosophy and English from Lincoln, Nebraska and a law degree from Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington. He is the son of immigrants from Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, who made South Carolina their home. He was born in Denmark while his parents were studying there. Then the family moved to Canada and later to the U.S.

“They came here like so many first generation Indian Americans with nothing more than their dreams. My father (Dilip) came here first with a few hundred dollars, and my mother (Gita) followed after several weeks. By the time she came, my father was broke, having spent all their money on the first month’s rent for a small apartment and for bus and taxi fares to search for a job. My mother got off the plane with $8 in her pocket. My father had joked to her that he hoped she had brought some more money so they could have something to eat that night. So that is how they got their start.

“Now, my father is a successful business executive and my mother is an accountant with her own store. Both my brother and I played Division One college tennis on athletic scholarships. I became a lawyer and my younger brother Nick is in medical school at the University of South Carolina and is the class vice-president.”