Florida school shooting: Petition targets a local CEO who sits on gun maker's board

Gregory Gluchowski, president and CEO of the Hillman Group in Mt. Healthy, has come under fire for sitting on the board of the gun maker tied to the Parkland, Fla. school shootings.

An online petition started by Praveen Kathpal of Alexandria, Va. at moveon.org calls for Gluchowski to step down from his seat on the board of American Outdoor Brands, formerly Smith & Wesson Holding Corp.

Gluchowski, whose company distributes fasteners, keys and hardware, could not immediately be reached comment. He has held a seat on the gun maker's board since June 2015, according to the company's website.

The AR-15 style rifle used to kill 17 people last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was a Smith & Wesson brand weapon.

Kathpal - a vice president at the energy-storage company, Fluence - said he started the petition to encourage Gluchowski and other business leaders to shun gun makers who supply the deadly semi-automatic rifles that have been used in a spate of mass shootings over the past several years.

"From the outside he (Gluchowski) seems like a decent person and a respected member of the business community, so it really struck a nerve with me that if he chose to end his association with Smith & Wesson it would send a strong signal that benefiting from the manufacture and sale of guns is not something people like him broadly across the country want to associate themselves with,'' Kathpal said in a email.

Kathpal said he started the petition with other "like-minded parents.'' But he did not say why he picked Gluchowski or whether he and his supporters planned to target other business leaders in other states.

More than 200 people have signed the online petition, titled, "Greg Gluchowski: Resign from the Smith & Wesson Board of Directors.''

Mt. Healthy Mayor James Wolf, who is also a social studies teacher at Mt. Healthy High School, said he first became aware of the petition Tuesday when he was tagged in a tweet from Kathpal.

Kathpal said he included Wolf in his tweet after seeing the mayor's tweet about the Parkland shooting.

While he's concerned about the increasing number of school shootings, Wolf said he has never met Gluchowski and was not prepared "to throw him under the bus.''

Wolf also noted that Gluchowski's company has been, by far, his school's biggest benefactor, providing supplies, mentors and financial contributions.

"As a teacher, I don't want guns in my school,'' Wolf said. "But Hillman doesn't manufacture guns, and they don't bring guns into our schools.''