Dolly Kour: Customer Service Rep and a Singer, Too!

Dolly Kour, a Customer Service Representative in our Des Moines office, also happens to be a singer from Kashmir, India, who immigrated to the United States in 1999.

Her love of singing began when she was 7 or 8, singing in front of a large audience of students. Her singing was a huge hit with them and she knew then that she wanted to become a singer.

By the time she was a teenager, people would ask her for an autograph. They thought she sounded very much like one of the best singers in India at the time, Lata Mangeshkar, a popular singer.

“People said they couldn’t tell us apart,” Dolly explains. “I was thrilled, because Lata is very well known.”

Musical Training

She attended the University of Punjab and even competed in the prestigious State Masters In Music competition, where she sang classical music in five different Indian languages!

In 1987, her music career blossomed when she was selected to represent India in Russia for a music concert. After that there were other singing engagements and even a CD of Indian music featuring her. She completed a Masters degree in music and became a sought-after music teacher.

Then disaster struck. Dolly contracted a virus and ended up losing her voice. Surgery was performed, but the doctors told her that her vocal chords were damaged and she would never sing again. She was determined to sing again, and after a time her singing voice returned. She had beaten the odds!

Moving to America

Her sister, who had moved to California in 1984, sponsored her parents to immigrate to the United States. About four years later, they sponsored Dolly and her other sister to come to the United States. Finally, in 1999, Dolly was granted a visa.

When she decided to leave India for the U.S., her students and their parents were very upset. They didn’t want to lose such a well-liked music teacher.

What made her give all that up and relocate to America, where she would have to start over?

“It was always my dream to come to America,” Dolly says. “This was my chance.”

By then her sister had moved to Kent, so she arrived here to start a new life in the U.S.
She settled in and began working odd jobs. Then, in October 2007, she found out about a job opening at the SAV-ON Seattle office.

”When I went in for the interview, I didn’t know what to expect,” she recalls. “But the interview lasted for over an hour. When they hired me, it was the happiest day of my life!”

A hard worker, she started in the Data Entry department, then was promoted to the Des Moines headquarters and is now a full-time Customer Service Representative there. 16 years later she’s still hard at work.

“SAV-ON is like a second family to me,” she says. “It’s a home away from home. We have a very good, dedicated team here.”

“I can’t wait to start work every day!”