Rehoboth Discount Hotels

Putting the Bus in Business

''[There are] times when we have to make sure to turn the business off in our personal life,'' says Richard Green, referring to his relationship -- both personal and professional -- with Asi Ohana.

The gay couple runs DC2NY, one of the many bus companies to spring up over the past few years offering inexpensive direct travel between major East Coast markets. But DC2NY is the only gay-owned company among its 12 major competitors, says Green. DC2NY bills itself as ''the upscale bus.''

It's hard to overstate the company's influence -- in just four years' time -- in upgrading the market. What started as a means to cheaply connect workers in urban Chinatowns has morphed into a mainstream mode of affordable and appealing passenger travel.

Ohana hatched the idea for DC2NY while working as a manager for the discount bus line Vamoose. He sensed a need for a more ''customer service-oriented'' company. Green, a longtime executive at hotel chain Marriott International, utilized his expertise in the hospitality industry to help put Ohana's ideas into action.

Among other advances, DC2NY helped to cultivate a younger, more tech-savvy crop of bus passengers by becoming the first to offer free Wi-Fi service on its buses, now standard operating procedure across the market. DC2NY also pioneered other customer-friendly frills, from providing passengers bottles of water, to polling them about whether to stop for a 15-minute break at a rest area or show a movie along the way.

All of Ohana's ''upscale'' ideas have paid off. The company was an instant hit. ''We were sold out for the first month before we even opened [in July 2007],'' marvels Ohana. DC2NY has now carried almost half a million passengers annually.

Ohana's foresight coupled with Green's experience would not have amounted to much, were it not for another company that brought the two together in the first place.

''We met on Match.com,'' says Green, laughing. ''Seriously. We started chatting in the fall of 2005, and met in January of 2006.'' At the time, Ohana had just moved from his native Israel to New York, and had also started the coming-out process. He moved to D.C. to live with Green.

''The fact that I'm Jewish,'' adds the 54-year-old Green, ''[has] made it easier for Asi's first relationship with a man.'' The 32-year-old Ohana is a twin, one of 11 children, and the only one of his Orthodox Jewish family living outside of Israel. Ohana is out to some of his siblings, and his parents are aware of his relationship with Green, whom they see once a year. But they don't discuss it.

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