Chief Financial Officer
Elliott Company
Mr. O'Sullivan is a 1971 Accounting graduate of IUP, with a minor in Economics. His first job was in public accounting with Schneider Downs & Co., a regional firm based in Pittsburgh with a diverse small-business clientele. Mr. O'Sullivan earned his CPA certificate there, receiving a good exposure to accounting, finance, and taxation.
Mr. O'Sullivan moved to Joy Manufacturing, a Fortune 500 company and the world's leading manufacturer of underground coal mining equipment, in a corporate tax position. Over seventeen years, he was promoted to positions of tax director, general auditor, treasurer, and chief financial officer. Just days after he was elected treasurer in 1986, Joy received a hostile tender offer, culminating in a leveraged buyout of the company, and Mr. O'Sullivan was given the opportunity to join the LBO group, which he looks on as an accelerated period of learning and personal growth.
Mr. O'Sullivan left Joy to join the Conair Group, a closely-held manufacturer of equipment for the plastics industries. While at Conair, Mr. O'Sullivan helped to restructure the company from a four-site manufacturing platform to a single manufacturing location.
Following eleven years at Conair, Mr. O'Sullivan joined Elliott Company in Jeannette, Pa., as chief financial officer, where he is in his eighth year as of this writing. Elliott is a global supplier of rotating turbomachinery equipment used in oil and gas production, refining, and petrochemicals. More than half of the business is outside of the United States. Elliott is owned by a Japanese parent, Ebara Corporation, and the cultural mix is a very interesting facet of the job.
Mr. O'Sullivan is president of the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre and serves on the council of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. He spent six years as a member of the board of the Foundation for IUP, chairing the investment committee for five years, and was actively involved in Phase I of IUP's Residential Revival. He is a member of the Eberly College of Business Advisory Council.
He and his wife, Sandy, reside in Pittsburgh. They have a grown daughter.
Inducted Spring 2011