May 6, 2026

From Mumbai to the Pacific Northwest

By: People of Saltchuk

in Career Growth and Advancement, People of Saltchuk, Western US

How a Supply Analyst Found His Path Through Delta Western

Nishant Shah grew up in Mumbai, India’s financial capital and a city of relentless motion. His family moved often, and he changed schools four times before high school. He was an active kid, always busy, always curious. And since he can remember, he has been fascinated by how things work.

“From a young age, I was fascinated by cars and anything mechanical,” he said. “That curiosity eventually led me to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and in many ways, that interest in how things work still shapes the way I approach my career today.”

That thread of curiosity, systems, and a drive to understand operations end-to-end would carry Shah from a BMW showroom in Mumbai, through a family manufacturing business, and ultimately to Delta Western, a Saltchuk company delivering fuel to remote communities across Alaska.

Building a Foundation

Shah’s first job after his engineering degree was as a Product Specialist with BMW. He helped customers navigate vehicle options, supported the sales team during demonstrations, and picked up an early lesson that stuck with him.

“People rarely buy something because of the specifications,” he said. “They buy because they trust the person explaining it to them.”

That insight followed him out of the showroom and into the far more unpredictable world of running a family business. His next chapter, joining Accurate Graphics, his family’s print manufacturing firm, gave him a fuller education. He worked across every function: production planning, quality control, customer relationships, and strategy. Some days, he says, “all three before lunch.”

“That’s where I realized something about myself,” he said. “I really enjoy building systems that make things run better.”

The Foster Factor

Looking for a place where his skills and systems-thinking could open doors, Shah set his sights on the United States.

The University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, with its highly regarded Supply Chain Management program, quickly rose to the top of options. He also considered MIT, but Foster and Seattle felt right. The mild climate reminded him of Mumbai, and for a supply chain student, the city’s ecosystem of logistics and technology leaders made it an easy choice. “Rain is nothing here compared to Mumbai,” he said. Mumbai’s monsoon season has a way of putting a Pacific Northwest drizzle in perspective.

As it turned out, Shah had landed in exactly the right place. Former Saltchuk President Tim Engle serves on the Foster board, and one of the founders, Mike Garvey, has helped cement a partnership with NorthStar Energy that has now sponsored five cohorts of UW students, each tackling real business challenges and presenting findings to company leadership.

Shah learned about the internship the way many good ones arrive, through a relationship he’d already invested in. He had asked his professor to flag anything promising. When Delta Western came looking for a supply chain intern, his professor passed it along.

From Intern to Analyst

Shah joined NorthStar Energy’s Seattle office as a Supply Chain Management intern to help optimize barge and resupply scheduling. He quickly engaged with real operational challenges facing Alaska’s fuel distribution network, end-to-end thinking he’d first practiced at Accurate Graphics, now applied at a very different scale.

Shah looking out at the Seattle waterfront from the NorthStar Energy corp office What impressed Jeremy Talarovich, Director of Operations at Delta Western, wasn’t just Shah’s technical foundation; it was how quickly he found his footing.

“Despite not having any fuel distribution background, Nishant was quickly able to understand our operations and jumped in headfirst to help develop solutions,” Talarovich said. “Within a few months, we knew we had more opportunities we could leverage his skill set for. That, coupled with his enthusiastic attitude, we decided to bring him on full-time.”

Delta Western runs a network of eight remote sites from Southeast to Western Alaska. For Talarovich, the right person always matters more than proximity. “I would rather have the right employee be remote than the wrong one sitting beside me,” he said.

Shah is that person. Last October, he joined Delta Western as a full-time Supply Chain Analyst, already deep into a Microsoft Fabric initiative connecting demand forecasts, inventory levels, and transportation constraints into a more integrated fuel delivery planning model for remote Alaska communities.

“There’s a lot of room to explore new ideas and build systems that can improve operations over the long term,” he said.

Beyond the Office

Away from work, Shah keeps life full and surprisingly varied. He’s currently rehearsing for The Show Must Go Wrong, an April musical featuring eight different dance styles, including the Bollywood and folk dances he performs. It’s a tradition that runs deep in India, where every state has its own language and its own distinct style of folk dance.

Nishant dancing at a friends wedding in Jaipur, Rajasthan

Shah speaks five of those languages fluently. Growing up in Mumbai, one of the world’s most culturally layered cities, gave him a multilingual foundation that continues to shape how he communicates and connects with people, both at home and at work.

And then there’s LEGO. What started casually has, by his own admission, “become slightly dangerous.”

“You walk into a store thinking you’ll buy a small set,” he said, “and suddenly you’re carrying a box the size of your luggage.”

It’s a hobby that fits him perfectly, structured, satisfying, and always one piece away from something bigger.

For now, he’s focused on the work in front of him: building better systems, fueling remote communities, and finding his place in a city that’s starting to feel like home.