Sale of Outdoor Power Equipment is finalized
BUSINESS
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
As of last Wednesday morning the sale of Outdoor Power Equipment, Inc. became final when John Sullivan, with the company for 13 years, bought the business from the estate of the late Gary Glowacki. In January, Richard "Rusty" Campbell, whose tenure at OPE began in late 1999, purchased the lawn and garden division, now called Rusty's Outdoor Power Equipment, that will continue at 85 Pleasant St.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Sergey Chumak (left) and John Sullivan are new partners in Outdoor Power Equipment, Inc., operating Nantucket Marine on Sun Island Road. Sullivan officially bought OPE, Inc. on Feb. 13. In January, Rusty Campbell bought the company's lawn and garden division and is running Rusty's Outdoor Power Equipment on Pleasant Street.

Outdoor Power Equipment, Inc. includes Nantucket Marine on Sun Island Road which sells Boston Whalers and services and maintains more than 200 boats. Outdoor Power was founded by Albert S. Glowacki in the early 1980s. At the time, his son Gary was working for NASA in Maryland as a cargo engineer for the space shuttle program, but later in the decade he decided to settle down on Nantucket and acquired the business from his father. When Gary Glowacki died unexpectedly in September 2004 his brother Michael Glowacki oversaw the company, managed by Sullivan and Campbell, until the recent sale.

Sullivan was hired by the young Glowacki as a mechanic. He became service manager of Nantucket Marine in 1999 and in 2004 was named marine division manager. He has formed a partnership at Nantucket Marine with Sergey Chumak who was hired by Glowacki in 2000.

"We're sharing a lot of the load. We've got a big operation," said Sullivan. "We are going to continue to operate as we have. We've got a good model here that was developed over many years that works very well. We take care of our customers.

"I feel extremely fortunate to have an opportunity like this. I am very thankful and I'm going to work as hard as I can to maintain the success of this place," he added. "Gary was the one who hired us, he trained us and he invested in us. It was his project - he made this happen. The biggest boost to this company was having this facility out here."

Under the new ownership arrangement boats will no longer be displayed on the Pleasant Street

property with the lawn equipment, but little else will change for Campbell.

"It's really going to be business as usual," he said. "We're going to focus on what we've done and build on that. I'm very happy that the family, John, Sergey and myself were able to make things happen as we wanted it to happen. As a team that's one of our

greatest accomplishments." I