Tulsa rental operator provides lifeline for Ukrainian family
By Connie Lannan
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Tulsa rental operator provides lifeline for Ukrainian family

At first glance, they could be characters from a thrilling spy novel. A former U.S. Army Green Beret working for the Department of Defense (DOD) in Germany meets a captain in the National Police of Ukraine. They work together to combat the Russian mafia, including human trafficking, intellectual property theft and money laundering schemes.

The former Green Beret starts his own security firm, resigns from the DOD and moves to the U.S. He asks his Ukrainian friend to come to America and help him. During all of this, he purchases an equipment rental business, which fulfills a deeper mission to help people. The Ukrainian friend arrives, but his family is stuck when Russia invades. A harrowing escape ensues.

While it might sound like a work of fiction, this is all too real for Tim Holmsley, owner, Bloss Equipment Co., Tulsa, Okla., his friend, Pasha Vershylenko, Pasha’s wife, Dasha, and their two children, Arina, 11, and Vanya, 3, who are from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

It all began with Holmsley, who started working for the DOD after his decades-long career in the Army, the last 13 years of which he served as a Green Beret.

“After I got out of the Army, I started working as a civilian for the DOD. Part of my job was to work very closely with the FBI to counter Russian organized crime. A large part of that was centered around money laundering. We were tracking the money. We worked a lot with the National Police of Ukraine, which is similar to the FBI in the United States. We worked with other foreign government entities as well. I met Pasha in 2016, when he was with the National Police of Ukraine assigned to Interpol. I quickly noticed that he was a really good guy. He was very competent and well respected by everyone. He also had a law degree and spoke fluent Russian,” Holmsley says.

Pasha in front of the Interpol building

Holmsley had always wanted to operate his own business, so in 2018 he started a security company called Steinlein Group. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do much with it due to DOD restrictions, so he resigned from his job and moved from Germany to Texas in 2020.

“My family arrived in Austin just as the pandemic hit. After a few months, I decided to put the security business on hold and look for a business to purchase,” Holmsley says.

“I always thought Pasha would be a great business partner, but he was still in Ukraine. We agreed to work together, and I started the application process for an H-1B employment visa, even hiring a lawyer to assist with the project. When I started the visa process and hired a lawyer, I wasn’t making any money. For me to pay for that wasn’t easy, but there was always this little voice that said, ‘This is a good thing. You need to do this,’” he says.

“A little over a year before, Pasha had resigned from the police to start his own business, an after-school kids club called ‘Daddy’s Home,’ where he helped kids with schoolwork and mentored them in character development,” Holmsley adds.

Holmsley had two goals for his business. “I wanted to give other people opportunities and I wanted to enable others to do what they do best. When this opportunity came up to purchase an equipment rental business, I had never considered it at all, but it actually does both of those things. You are renting people equipment they use to do productive things, so when the opportunity came up in Tulsa to purchase Bloss in 2021, I did it,” he says.

Even though Holmsley had no real rental experience, he was not concerned that he had gone too far afield. “I was in the military for 20-plus years. The way it is structured, you usually have an officer, which I was, who is the person in charge. Under him or her, you have noncommissioned officers and soldiers. The noncommissioned officers run the day-to-day activities and the soldiers do the technical work. That is how Bloss is set up. I, as the owner, provide leadership and direction and the strategic thinking behind it. I don’t need to be an expert in every area. That’s not my role. My general manager oversees the overall operation. We have a rental manger, parts manager and a service manager. Each section also has technicians, so the structure is very similar. It is a people business, and a lot of the principles are the same. Yes, you have different stakeholders and a different context, but you are dealing with all the same things. Bloss is a great company that has been in operation since 1966,” he says.

Holmsley took over Bloss in July 2021. After a year of working through the visa process, Pasha was finally granted permission to enter the U.S. in early 2022. “He got through all the hoops and hurdles to make it happen and arrived here in Tulsa on Feb. 2,” Holmsley says.

Tim Holmsley (left) and Pasha Vershylenko

“Pasha is now helping develop the rental business. Our goal is to expand internationally, and he is the right person for that,” Holmsley says, noting that Pasha had already researched rental operations in Ukraine before coming to the United States.

Pasha has been working with customers in the rental department. “I wanted him to be there for a few months to learn that part and then move inside to the sales department. Basically, I wanted him to advise me on ways to improve. He has provided me so many ideas — almost wearing me out,” Holmsley says.

When Pasha arrived in Tulsa, there already was talk about possible Russian aggression toward Ukraine, but all seemed calm. The plan was for Dasha, a journalist for a Ukrainian television station, and their two children to leave their country on Monday, Feb. 28, and visit Tulsa for a short while.

However, on the prior Thursday — Feb. 24 — Russia invaded Ukraine. “They had tickets to come over on the following Monday. They had just received the paperwork for their visas before the embassy closed,” Pasha says, adding that even though he tried to change the dates of their flights, he wasn’t able to do so since all airlines in Ukraine were grounded after the invasion began.

 It was a very tense time, with Pasha in the United States worrying about his family back in Ukraine.

As the Russian bombing increased, it became more challenging for Dasha and the children, who spent two nights in an underground shelter after hearing bombs going off nearby. After that, she and the children left Kyiv for a small village north of the capital where her parents live.

Dasha and her children in the shelter during the bombing

“Russian troops took control of the village and cut off the water and electricity. That made it virtually impossible for people to cook or heat their homes. February in Ukraine is really cold,” Holmsley says. “Pasha’s family was stuck there. They couldn’t move. In the meantime, Pasha decided to fly to Poland, cross the Ukrainian border and get to his family so he could help them escape. That would be a complicated thing because if he went back in the country, he wouldn’t be able to leave again as all men under the age of 60 are required to stay to help in the war effort. For him it was a one-way trip, but he wanted to make sure his family was safe.”

As Pasha was getting ready to drive to the airport and return to Ukraine, he received a text message. “Dasha’s father was able to somehow drive her, my children and her younger sister out of the village,” he says, noting that he later learned it was a very harrowing escape, barely avoiding some Russian tanks.

“She left with just the clothes on her back and two small bags — one packed with food as they didn’t have any idea how long the journey would be and the other one with items for the kids,” Holmsley says. “Her father got them to the train station, where they were packed in with other refugees. They were lucky that they got on the train that day because the Russians bombed the train station the next day.”

With temperatures hovering near freezing, they traveled for five days. Their first stop out of Ukraine was Warsaw, Poland, where Dasha’s younger sister decided to stay with friends who live there. (See the Fox 23 news story about her escape.) Dasha and her children took a train to Germany, where they were able to get flights to Portugal, then Miami and ultimately Tulsa for a tearful reunion with Pasha at the Tulsa International Airport. (See the Fox 23 news story about their reunion and the life they left behind.)

While Pasha is grateful that he and his family are together and safe, he is torn because all his relatives and friends are still in Ukraine.

“It is really hard because on one hand my family and I are safe, but on the other I feel horrible inside because I am not with those in Ukraine who are suffering. It’s very difficult not to go back right now, but I know I can be more useful to them by being here. For example, I have already sent money to the police and doctors I know who have lost their homes. The longer I am here, the more ways I will find to help,” he says. 

Dasha, Pasha and children

Even with all the strife, Pasha and his family have been able to regain some sense of normalcy. Dasha is still reporting for her television station, offering news stories from a more American angle — for example, how U.S. citizens are supporting Ukraine, their understanding of increased gasoline prices and more. She also is advising Holmsley on social media and website ideas for the rental business. The most important step was enrolling their daughter in school. “That was my first task,” Pasha says.

He understands how lucky he is to be out of harm’s way. “I have always been fortunate with the important things in life. My family and friends often say that I have a guardian angel; this time the angel sent Tim,” Pasha says.

Holmsley is grateful for the opportunity to help. “I recognized Pasha’s inherent good qualities. I am just glad I listened to that little voice inside me. It kept saying I needed to continue with the visa process. Now it seems evident why I needed to do that,” he says.

Connie Lannan

Connie LannanConnie Lannan

Connie Lannan is special projects editor for Rental Management. She helps plan, coordinate, write and edit ARA’s quarterly regional newsletters, In Your Region. She also researches, writes and edits news and feature articles for Rental Management, Rental Pulse, supplements, special reports and other special projects. Outside of work, she loves to bake for others, go for walks with her husband and volunteer for her church and causes she believes in.

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