ENTREPRENEURS AUGUST 3, 2014E SUNDAY,

Rhonda AbramsColumnist

INSIDE Small businesses undergoing hiring surge, 5E JOB CLASSIFIEDS, 8E

RENAISSANCEMAN TOM O’HANLAN’S INTERESTS COVER

TREE FARMS TO COMPUTER PARTS

Tom O’Hanlan has done every-thing from woodworking to de-signing and building computercomponents for the space shut-tle.

O’Hanlan, the CEO of Seale-vel Systems Inc. in Liberty, isalso a musician, a tree farmer,an avid reader, a bird hunter, an

author, an inventor and community activist.The former Liberty town council memberrebuilds organs, loves art, is into boating, gotinto Harleys and tried flying.

“I do things just to learn and sometimesthen move on,” said O’Hanlan. “I have a pas-sion for learning. Maybe it’s ADD.”

Even if that’s the diagnosis, it doesn’t ap-pear to have been a hindrance to O’Hanlan’sbusiness or personal success.

His nearly 30-year-old company builds in-dustrial computers and custom parts thatcan’t be found in stores, like that board forNASA or the computer board FedEx boughtto hook up to scanners in all of its ware-houses and depots.

O’Hanlan has the ability to take his knowl-edge and enthusiasm and solve complexproblems, said Brice Bay, a friend and foun-

der of EnVeritas Group, a digital marketingagency in Greenville.

“He’s got an amazing mind,” Bay said.O’Hanlan and his wife, Susan, started Sea-

level Systems in 1986, in the basement of acomputer store on the US 123 Bypass in Eas-ley.

It initially offered custom circuit boardsthat plugged into IBM personal computersand allowed them to talk to controls in fac-tories and to control themselves, O’Hanlansaid.

In 1984, he designed the first RS-422/485communication adapter for the IBM PC. Healso has been awarded two U.S. patents —one for an error detecting system and anoth-er for a communication device.

Today, Sealevel offers hardware and soft-

By Angelia DavisStaff writerdavisal@greenvilleonline.com

Sealevel, the company founded by Tom O’Hanlan, builds industrial computers, like the computer docking stations for military use seen above right, andcustom parts that can’t be found in stores. The company also has started working with 3D printing technology, above left. MYKAL MCELDOWNEY/STAFF

See O’HANLAN, Page 2E

THAT OTHER PASSIONHe can’t read it, but he can play it. VisitGreenvilleOnline.com to hear Sealevel Systemsfounder Tom O’Hanlan talk about his passion formusic.

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 2014 THE GREENVILLE NEWS2E greenvilleonline.com

ware products to enable computer con-nectivity and control, manufacturingmore than 300 standard I/O productswith ISO 9001: 2000 registration.

“We went from just boards to harden-ed, rugged industrial computers — a PCthat will work in a real high temperatureenvironment and won’t fail,” O’Hanlansaid.

Sealevel’s computers are generallysold to other businesses and used in a va-riety of vertical markets such as publicsafety, process control to an assemblyline, medical products, transportationapplications, broadcast, oil and gas, andmining.

The company has evolved to doingpredominantly custom solutions, mean-ing “a lot of what we make we don’t sellto anybody else but the customer,” hesaid.

Well-roundedO’Hanlan and his wife came to the

Upstate from Virginia when his job atNational Cash Register transferred himto Liberty.

They opened the business at a timewhen the the Upstate was still dominat-ed by textiles and apparel manufactur-ing, said Mack Whittle, a former bankchairman and a friend.

Whittle, who travels with the O’Han-lans as members of organizationsthey’re part of, said he considers O’Han-lan a “modern day Renaissance man.”

“He’s very creative from a businessperspective as well as from an arts and amusic perspective,” Whittle said. “Heloves to hunt, to fish, get in the boat. Heloves to have fun. He’s far more roundedthan a lot of people who are in the kind ofbusiness he’s in.”

O’Hanlan was born in Waynesboro,Virginia, a city about the size of Easley,located about 90 miles northwest ofRichmond.

His father was Dr. Treacy O’Hanlan, ageneral surgeon and inventor of medicaldevices, and his mother, Elizabeth Book-er O’Hanlan, was a registered nurse.

In addition to his parents, O’Hanlanwas influenced by his grandfather, Dr.Lyle Steele Booker, who he never met.

Booker performed the first surgeryat the newly built Duke University Hos-pital. He was also a real estate developerand developed the Hope Valley area inDurham, North Carolina, O’Hanlan said.And he owned the Durham Bulls base-ball team.

O’Hanlan said his mom used to tellhim he was a Booker in that he alwayswanted to make money.

At the age of 9, he was selling seedshe’d get from companies listed in theback of comic books. If you sold enoughof the seeds, you could win a walkie-talk-ie or bicycle, he said.

He also went door to door sellingsoap. And when his brother developedproblems with his leg, O’Hanlan did hispaper route for him.

There were five kids in the family,and “I was the only one that did that kindof stuff,” he said.

O’Hanlan also had a knack for fixingthings or taking them apart to see whatmade them work, including the brokenstereo system his best friend’s dad gaveto him.

He was in the seventh grade when hebegan playing the bass guitar. His firstguitar amplifier was one he made usinghis parents’ old record player.

While in high school, he was a mem-ber of a band that bore his name.

He met his wife in high school whenshe hired his band to play for a party.

“She loves to say ‘and he’s still work-ing for me,’ and I am,” he said.

The couple was married while theywere in college. His son, Ben, presidentof Sealevel, was less than a year oldwhen he attended his father’s collegegraduation.

Their daughter, Sarah Beasley, is thecompany’s vice president of brand de-velopment

Giving backOne thing that’s important to O’Han-

lan is giving back. One of his proudestaccomplishments has been the start ofManufacturers Caring for PickensCounty, a group consisting of CEOs, en-trepreneurs and other leaders, whosegoal is to “reach out to the Pickens Coun-ty community, to enhance, develop andenrich our socioeconomic values andconditions to higher and higher levels.”

The organization is active in the localschools, promoting STEM education.

O’Hanlan himself floundered arounda bit in high school, unsure of what he

wanted to do.“I had to drop out of college my first

year before I realized I could get a de-gree in engineering. I didn’t know youcould get a degree in electronics and be-come an electrical engineer. It took theschool of hard knocks to kind of figurethat out but I’m glad I did,” O’Hanlansaid.

He first attended Bridgewater Col-lege, a liberal arts school in Virginia, andflunked out by spring break.

“It was like high school but harder,and I hated high school. But I got to do anindependent study during spring breakon synthesizers,” he said. “I got an A.”

O’Hanlan went to work for a plumb-ing company before returning to schoolto earn an electronics degree from thetwo-year college. He then transferred toVirginia Tech and received a Bachelor ofScience degree in engineering.

LayoffAfter college graduation, the O’Han-

lans moved to Delaware where he took ajob at NCR.

When the company closed the Dela-ware plant and moved it to Liberty, theO’Hanlans came with it.

Two years later, NCR started layingoff employees here.

“I think my buddies and I were sittingin the cafeteria watching people leave,thinking, ‘Man, I’m glad they’re not call-ing our names,’” he said. “Sure enough …they called our names and we had toleave.”

NCR came back after being boughtby AT&T. Some of O’Hanlan’s friends re-turned there to work, but “I wasn’t goingback. That was a lesson to me that youmake your own future,” he said.

He began doing so by working as acontractor, moonlighting with other tex-tile companies.

He developed products for them andthey paid him royalties. All the while, hewas gearing up to open his own compa-ny.

“I had these products and it hadgrown to the point where I knew it wouldfly,” he said.

The textile company informedO’Hanlan that it wasn’t doing too well.He contacted his father, who co-signed asmall loan — $15,000 — “and we started abusiness,” O’Hanlan said.

O’Hanlan and Susan were the onlyemployees. They had two products andcustomers.

The textile company that Tom hadworked for financed inventory andwished him well.

“We had a deal where if I got a superbig order within a year, I’d pay them acommission. That didn’t happen but I’mstill friends with those guys,” O’Hanlansaid.

Sea LevelO’Hanlan sought a name for his com-

pany that sounded environmental andunlike a computer company.

He came up with Sealevel while driv-ing home, listening to a radio show.

He likened naming the company tonaming a baby.

“You’re awkward at first with it andthen once you do it, you’re kind of em-barrassed to tell your friends becauseyou feel like you have to explain thename,” he said. “After a while, it justrolled off my tongue.”

There are some who believe the com-pany was named for the Southern Rock/funk/fusion band, Sea Level, that existedin the 1970s and early ’80s.

If you call the Sealevel company to-day and get put on hold, you’ll likely heartunes from the Sea Level band or the All-man Brothers.

Chuck Leavell, a member of the All-man Brothers Band, formed Sea Levelwhen his old band broke up. Back then,O’Hanlan said, his name was pro-nounced “Level.”

Allman Brothers “roadies” would putC-Leavell on Leavell’s road cases,O’Hanlan said.

Leavell, who is now a Rolling Stoneskeyboardist, and O’Hanlan becamefriends years ago after O’Hanlan got achance to meet him at a book signing.

Leavell, like O’Hanlan , is an environ-mentalist and a tree farmer.

“He’s written some books about sus-tainability, forestation, and that type ofstuff. I paid extra to go backstage, shakehis hand and get an autograph,” O’Han-lan said.

“I took my business card and gave itto him. He looked at it and started laugh-ing. Then he said, “What do y’all do?’”

The answer to that question is alwaysa complicated one, O’Hanlan said.

“Generally I’ll say — and my wifegets mad at me — we make weird stuff,”he said. “She’s like, ‘Why do you keepsaying that?’ I say, ‘Because if I toldthem, they might not understand.’’

Tom O’Hanlan says when he’s asked what Sealevel does, he often says, “We make weird stuff.” A more detailed explanation, he says, might not be understood. MYKAL MCELDOWNEY/STAFF

O’HANLANContinued from Page 1E

One of O’Hanlan’s passions is playing the bass guitar, which he first picked up in seventhgrade. In high school he played in a band that bore his name. Here he plays a tune on his1971 Fender Precision bass guitar. MYKAL MCELDOWNEY/STAFF

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