Thursday, April 20, 2006

O'Sullivan news release makes no mention of million-dollar CEO

The removal of Bob Parker as O'Sullivan Industries CEO does not appear to be an amicable one, based on the news release issued Wednesday by the company to announce the permanent elevation of Rick Allan Walters to the top spot.
Parker's name was not mentioned once.
The news release reads:

ROSWELL, Ga., April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- O'Sullivan Industries, Inc., a leading designer, marketer and manufacturer of office, home, storage and organizational products, today announced that Rick Walters was named President and Chief Executive Officer by the company's board of directors.

"Naming Rick to lead O'Sullivan positions the company to continue the execution of the strategy and plans designed to turn O'Sullivan into a stronger company for the future," stated Tom Shandell, who was named chairman of the O'Sullivan board of directors.

Mr. Walters joined O'Sullivan as CFO in June 2004 from Newell Rubbermaid, where he served as group vice president and CFO of the company's Sharpie/Calphalon group. He has served as interim CEO of O'Sullivan since November 2005.

The company also announced the promotion of Russ Steinhorst to Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Mr. Walters.

Mr. Steinhorst joined O'Sullivan as Corporate Controller in August, 2004 from Newell Rubbermaid, where he held progressively increasing responsibility in various accounting and finance roles, with his last position as Vice President - Finance for the Sharpie group.

"Russ has done an outstanding job helping to guide O'Sullivan through our recently completed restructuring," commented Rick Walters. "He is a solid financial and business leader and we look forward to his continued contributions to O'Sullivan's successes into the future."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Parker had the stroke, right? Anybody hear whether he graduated from using crayons afterwards? Interesting how this played out. Old ownership brought Parker in to replace incumbents so they didn't do to the company what Parker and group did to the company. Now Parker gets bums rush (whether he understands that or not) and the pupil becomes the master.

How do all the employees feel about this?

Anonymous said...

As a former employee I can only hope Million Dollar Bob gets paid off at $.07 cents on the dollar !!