Surrounded by hooded men hoisting assault-style rifles toward him, a LaPorte, Ind., businessman being held hostage in Iraq pleaded for his life in a video shown Wednesday on the Al Jazeera television station.
The harrowing image sent shock waves through this small community in northwest Indiana, which regards 47-year-old Jeffrey Ake as one of its most valued citizens–a solid family man and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the region.
Over just a few years, Ake turned a small bottle-machinery company launched from his home garage into a $5 million-per-year exporting business with sales across the globe.
“This was like being kicked in the stomach,” said LaPorte Mayor Leigh Morris, who has known Ake and his family for decades. “He’s a remarkable guy. He’s done so much work in the community. I wasn’t aware he was in Iraq, but I wasn’t surprised. He would go wherever there is a need.”
Ake is president and chief executive officer of a northern Indiana company that holds a contract to manufacture and label water bottles and other liquid containers during the reconstruction of Iraq. U.S. officials said Ake appeared to be the American contractor kidnapped Monday from a water treatment site in Baghdad.
Relatives of Ake gathered Wednesday at his home atop a hill overlooking a lake in a heavily wooded LaPorte neighborhood. An American flag waved from a pole in front of the home and a yellow ribbon gripped the trunk of a tree amid the spacious front lawn.
Community leaders are planning a candlelight vigil Friday evening.
“You hear of terrorism and the taking of hostages. It’s always a hostage from somewhere else,” the mayor said. “This one is ours.”
Ake’s 25-employee company, Equipment Express, had been assisting Iraq since April 2003, according to the company’s Web site. His firm, located in Rolling Prairie, Ind., about 15 miles west of South Bend, contracted in 2003 to construct a machine that pours edible oil into containers for Iraqis to use during food preparation, according to the site.
More recently, his company won a contract to provide a system to bottle, label, cap and package water for distribution in the war-torn country.
“He’s very enthusiastic and outgoing and proud of his job and his company. You see that glimmer in his eye when he is talking about it,” said Michael Seitz, president of the Greater LaPorte Chamber of Commerce. “When you get done with talking to him, you say what a neat company and what an entrepreneur.”
Though his nature is low-key, his passion for his business is instantly contagious, residents said. Ake is so filled with entrepreneurial enthusiasm that firms such as AT&T have hired him as a motivational speaker.
More than 200 foreigners, including at least 14 Americans, have been seized in Iraq over the last year, and at least three of the Americans have been killed. No group has claimed responsibility for Ake’s abduction.
In the video, an obviously frightened Ake is shown clutching a family photograph and holding his passport to his chest, according to the Associated Press. He is heard pleading for his life and requesting that the American occupation come to an end.
Police and reporters mixed at the foot of Ake’s front lawn Wednesday. A person answering the phone in the house declined to comment, but Mayor Morris said the family was holding up. Authorities said family members and neighbors were advised by federal officials not to comment to the media.
Ake and his wife have four children, the oldest, a freshman in high school, according to friends.
“Whenever you see Jeff and Liliana, it was almost a cameo of what you want a family to look like,” Morris said.
Family friend Anita Lebo said the Akes were the portrait of an ideal American family. Lebo and many others expressed dismay that Ake would be abducted when his company was in Iraq to assist the country’s rebuilding effort, not aid the U.S. military. It’s unclear exactly how long Ake had been in Iraq or how often.
“It’s not like he was there fighting,” Lebo said. “He’s such a good family man, and his wife is so nice. I can’t imagine what she is going through.”
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Added neighbor Greg Huber: “He is over there trying to help the people, and this happens to him.”
The bespectacled, unassuming Ake is a much-honored local businessman in the LaPorte area, winning several awards for his entrepreneurial success. Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business deemed his company one of the state’s 100 fastest-growing firms in 2004.
Ake has been active in both the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club. He and his wife, Liliana, have been fixtures at social functions and his wife spearheaded a drive last fall to provide shoes to needy children.
Raised in LaPorte, Ake and his brother, Greg, worked for their father’s liquid container company until he retired in the 1990s, Morris said. Jeffrey Ake graduated from the University of Illinois with degrees in history and psychology.
In 1997, along with his wife, Ake founded Equipment Express, according to the company Web site. The firm specialized in quickly building bottling machinery, the speed being instrumental in gaining him contracts throughout the world.
Ake told the LaPorte Herald Argus in April 2003 that he was excited about winning business in Iraq and the Middle East. He had sold bottling machinery in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iceland, Central America, Indonesia and the Philippines.