Mary Jane Petrusky

As co-founder and partner in The OPAL Group, Mary Jane Petrusky knows, first
hand, what it takes to build a business from concept to profitability. After all, it’s
been her primary focus since the early 90s.

When Jim Kilmer was launching his first company, Remlik Foods, over 16 years
ago, he turned to Mary Jane, a longtime friend and neighbor, to assist him in the
business that prepared and packaged spaghetti squash. It turned out to be quite
an adventure.

“Back then, Jim and I did everything, including cooking the squash, packaging it and delivering it. It was crazy in the beginning,” she says.

Several years later, when Jim transitioned from a food provider to a consultant for the industry and was preparing to launch The OPAL Group, he brought his longtime friend with him; the two share a sense of mutual self-respect.

“Mary Jane has always been eager to learn new tasks. ‘That’s not my job’ is not in her vocabulary. She always has a positive outlook and I knew that she would be a valuable contributor to both The OPAL Group, as well as our clients. She continues to focus on keeping costs down and she pursues challenges until success is achieved,” says Jim.

“I recognized long ago that Jim was very smart with a keen business sense,” says the Washington County resident. “I decided to hitch my wagon to his long ago and I haven’t looked back since. It’s been a great partnership.”

As a partner in The OPAL Group , Mary Jane is responsible for the accounting and HR functions for the company, as well as providing outsourced services to the company’s clients, including Country Gourmet Foods, the company’s largest consumer packaged goods client.

Currently, Mary Jane handles Country Gourmet’s label compliance and packaging issues, U.S.D.A. compliance, Canadian and Mexican exporting documentation, trade show management and a variety of other marketing functions.

“I never get bored because I do such a wide variety of things and our clients’ needs change all the time,” she explains. While her weekdays are spent building the business and helping to run The OPAL Group, her weekends for the past five years have been devoted to building things of a different nature—homes.

In 2000, Mary Jane and her husband, Sonny, purchased six acres of property in Carroll Township, Washington County, and have since been helping to build houses for themselves and various family members. Each weekend, members of the extended clan—many of whom work in the construction trades in some capacity—work side-by-side to build homes on the subdivided, one-acre lots.

“I have painted, built walls, installed ceramic tile, run wire and whatever I could to get these houses in move-in condition. It’s been an incredibly rewarding process,” she says describing the family pastime.

Amazingly, the close-knit extended family has built four homes to date for Mary Jane and her husband, her sister-in-law and husband, one son and a niece. Next up is a home for her oldest son.

Whether she is working to build a company or a new house, Mary Jane is clearly up to the challenge and armed with the right tools.

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