By Martin Hintz

Jere (Jerome) Sullivan doesn't mind getting a bit wet.  After all, when you're a yachtsman and "sailor of the year," getting damp is part of the hobby.  Water is in his blood, too.

This past March, he was honored by the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center for all his waterborne interests.  In receiving his award, Sullivan was cited for being "a sailor for nearly 70 years and a respected racer...and a successful businessman who has significantly contributed both financially and spiritually to the building of Wisconsin's tall ship, the 'Denis Sullivan.'"

Past recipients of the "Sailor of the Year" award include Buddy Melges, Gary Jobson, Peter and Olaf Harken, Bill Pinkney, the late Peter Barrett , Bill Schanen, Terry Kohler and Dawn Riley.  The sailing center is a 24-year-old nonprofit providing access to Lake Michigan and to sailing, with classes for its 500 members.  It also offers special programs for economically and physically disadvantaged kids and adults. 

Sullivan is grandson of Denis Sullivan, whose name graces the lovely schooner which now calls Milwaukee its home port.  The three-masted ship is a reproduction of a typical vessel that plied dangerous Great Lakes waters a century ago.

Notable Lake Captain
Irish-born Grandpa Sullivan was one of Lake Michigan's most noted captains, who worked his way up from being barge deckhand to earning hard-won master papers.  He would most likely be proud to learn that his descendant was honored this March at the ninth annual Milwaukee Community Sailing Center's Ball. 

Sullivan is former head of the Sullivan Corp., manufacturer of pulp and paper-making machinery which was sold to Harnischfeger 11 years ago.  He still owns a metal processing plant in Hartland and a plastics plant in North Carolina.  Sullivan grew up in Cleveland where his father had moved from Milwaukee to run the Cleveland branch of the Gartland Steamship Co. The firm was owned by his noted grandfather, using his wife's maiden name. 

During World War II, a disappointed Sullivan wasn't accepted into naval officer training because he was nearsighted. So he joined the Army, becoming an infantry sergeant, a 87th Division mortar squad leader fighting across France and into Germany. "It wasn't so pleasant," he remembered of those years.  "It was good to get back to the water. My eyesight has subsequently improved since that time," he added.

While living in Cleveland, Sullivan was commodore of the Cleveland Yachting Club in Rocky River, Ohio. He moved to the Milwaukee area about 30 years ago to start the Sullivan Corp.

Winters in Florida
Sullivan now winters from November to May in Vero Beach, Fla., commuting from his Wisconsin home on Pine Lake which he purchased 27 years ago. He also just secured a condo in the Cudahy Towers, where he can peer down on the Milwaukee Yacht Club and look to the south  to view the graceful Denis Sullivan when it is moored in the harbor. 

On the Atlantic side of Florida, the Sullivan getaway home is on the Indian River.  "We need to go 20 miles to the ocean so I have a 16-foot sailboat moored out back for sailing," Sullivan said.

For a time while in Florida, he operated a yacht charter service.  Sullivan once skippered a 65-foot ketch from Germany to Portugal, over to the Canary Islands, then on to Barbados and the Virgin Islands.  'It took us 14 days," he said.

"When I first came to Milwaukee in 1969, I rented an apartment in the Prospect Towers and would go yachting on weekends.  I had plenty of time at night to see movies and go to the library.  I looked up Capt. Sullivan  and tried to find out where he had lived,"  Sullivan recalled. 

Digging into the past, Sullivan also learned that his grandfather was born near Dublin and moved to the Wicklow area southeast of the Irish capital when he was a youngster  In the 1840s, he emigrated to Danville, Ontario, where he worked on lake shipping.  Eventually, the elder Sullivan wound up in Milwaukee sometime in the 1850s when probably still in his late teens, according to his grandson.  Grandpa soon fell in love and married Ellen Gartland, a Milwaukee belle.   However, the elder Sullivan died of the flu in 1918.

"I was born in 1925, so I never saw him. But my mom met him when he visited Cleveland. He was a stern taskmaster, I guess, not your typical jovial Irishman. But he was a great sailor, very tough.  He ran large freighters, so he had to be that way," Sullivan indicated.  One of Denis Sullivan's vessels was the 203-foot-long Moonlight which hauled stone, ore, coal and grain.

By researching family records and talking with elderly relatives, Sullivan also learned that his granddad had a brother, Daniel, who was a Great Lakes captain, as well.    "We never knew about him when growing up," he  lamented.

Settled in Milwaukee
Leaping ahead two generations, after a year of commuting back and forth from Cleveland, Jere Sullivan settled permanently into Milwaukee, when his wife Christine joined him.  They became members of the Milwaukee Yacht Club, passing on their love of sailing to daughter Jane.  The Sullivans now have two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
"They have a fresh water heritage and sailing in their genes,"  Sullivan said proudly. 

He was an active competitor in the 1970s, winning a major inland championship in 1975.  "I sailed scows on Pewaukee and Geneva  lakes. With that flat bottom, they were really fast, wonderful, sporty boats," Sullivan said.

Yet it wasn't all work and play. Sullivan took some time to earn his MBA from the University of Chicago in 1978.   He commuted to the Windy City on Friday and Saturdays for two years.

Yet the draw of water was always there.  His favorite vessel remains the Bacchant, a graceful 64-foot-long sloop built in Scandinavia.  He had seen photos of her (all ships are "females," according to Sullivan) in a book on yachts and feel immediately in love.  But for several years, this was an unrequited emotional attachment because the ship was not for sale.

Then, with a bit of Irish luck, Sullivan noticed an ad in a sailing magazine, indicating that his paramour had been brought to Sturgeon Bay and was on the block.  "I called, saying I'd be right up.  I raced there and bought her," he  said proudly.  The vessel has served him well, winning the hard-fought Chicago-Mackinac Island race in 1998 and 2001 against  300 other craft.  "I had sailed that event for 18 years and had never won.  We took the last race by 56 seconds," he said praising the skill of his 10-person crew.

Ship Constructed
When he first heard that a group of friends was planning on building the Denis Sullivan schooner, "I poo-poohed the idea," Sullivan said.  "I figured that was a huge chunk to bite off, a pipe dream.  But they bulldozed ahead," he pointed out.  Later, when realizing that the project was swiftly moving ahead, Sullivan gladly donated funds to help complete the boat.

"I hope old Denis is looking over my shoulder.  The schooner is a wonderful education project for underprivileged kids.  I've sailed on her and its great fun," he said.  Recently,  a passle of  Sullivans -- some 21 persons -- charted their "grandfather's boat" during its regular Florida hiatus where it stays over the winter. "It had its regular crew so we simply went along for the ride down to Key West. It was great," Sullivan said.

Apparently, cigar-smoking Grandpa Sullivan had a habit of clearing his throat.  Whenever he walked down the hallways of his office, everyone knew he was coming and would buckle down to work.  "I didn't hear him aboard the Sullivan, but I wouldn't doubt that he was there, too," agreed his grandson.

Sullivan has been to Ireland twice, the first time aboard the Queen Elizabeth II in the 1970s.  He had been asked to build a manufacturing plant in Ireland but "it was not a good idea at the time, there weren't the foundry skills," he recalled.  In 2001, he and his wife were aboard the first flight back to the United States from Shannon after the Twin Towers attack, cutting short their trip.  But while on the first leg of their adventure, the Sullivan's driver, Donny O'Leary had taken them to Wicklow where Sullivan's grandfather had lived and then they toured the Ring of Kerry

"I love the Irish people. They were so wonderful to us. Even though the whole country was shut down (after the New York terrorist attack), the churches were open and everyone was in praying as a mark of respect. Their kindness to us was incredible.  We were all in mourning," he recalled of those traumatic times.