By Kate Poss

Special to the News-Times

Mike Gallion is the kind of guy you always hope to find when your chainsaw needs repairing.

Living on Whidbey Island part time since 1948, and full time since 1959, Gallion has earned a reputation as the go-to man for repairing small engines, an ability that is becoming rare these days.

With his long white hair, his green coveralls sporting a patch with his name, Mike, in red letters, and his penchant for telling stories, Gallion is a man’s man. His numerous sheds of all things tools and parts and his yard of old trucks, landscape machinery, and abandoned cars, all serve to create a backdrop of endless things to look at and be curious about. Motors and engines have always interested him.

Gallion explained that his family had a fishing cabin on Mutiny Bay in 1948. His father decided that he liked the island better than Seattle and moved to a 20-acre farm on Crawford Road. Later, they moved to a new house overlooking Useless Bay.

Attending public school in Langley, Gallion enjoyed fishing and learning about all things mechanical in his spare time. In high school, he started working in engine repair.

“There was a little outboard motor and chainsaw shop in Freeland,” he recalled. “I’d go in with my dad to get stuff fixed. I was always interested in mechanical things, engines. I started hanging out for fun. The guy retired and offered his business to my dad, who bought it for next to nothing. I was 15. I didn’t have my license yet and my folks would drive me to work. I’ve been involved one way or another with small engines ever since.”

After high school, Gallion enrolled in and graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in industrial technology. He worked at Boeing in Mukilteo, writing software.

“I worked as a manufacturing engineer and one of the first computer people in engineering at Boeing,” he said. “Back in the day, I sat at a table with a roll of teletype paper. I wrote software, punched in holes on a yellow strip of paper tape. I had to write all of the software. When you needed software you wrote it yourself.”

Gallion started playing guitar in college and was in a rock-and-roll band. He recalled fun times playing at Langley’s now-closed Dog House, in the days when the building was supported by skinny wood pilings that were not stable. This was in the late ’60s, early ’70s. His band of South Whidbey residents was named the Headstone Band.

“That place was packed like you couldn’t believe,” Gallion recalled. “The whole building was swaying. We were very lucky that building didn’t collapse.”

These days he does solo gigs.

Gallion lives in the family’s Useless Bay home. Since his parents passed away, he inherited the property and runs his fix-it business. He also likes to say he keeps old and unrepairable chainsaws out of the landfill. He collects them and harvests their spare parts for customers. Some saws he rehabs and sells again. He also offers a free pickup service for folks with old, unrepairable chainsaws, offering to drive over, collect them and add them to his “bone pile.”

Gallion once owned Whidbey Saw and Cycle, which he built in 1969 and ran for the next couple of decades. He closed his business after multiple burglaries; a burglar broke in, shot his German shepherd and the store insurance was cancelled.

For competitions in the 1970s, Gallion built a racing chainsaw for the Echo chainsaw company. It earned him a 1976 South Whidbey Record article touting his talent: “Mike is the best in the industry at hopping up saws,” the article said. Gallion said Echo consulted with him and later used his designs in one of their models.

Later on in his long and interesting life, Gallion’s friends told him they had trouble finding someone to fix their chainsaws.

“I thought, why the heck not?” he said and started his business once again.

These days, he says it’s fun to see old-timers he knew who come by to get their chainsaws fixed.

“I enjoy seeing the old faces,” he said. “It’s a good reunion.”

Phone Gallion at 360-321-6258 or email him at magaero@whidbey.com.

Photo by David Welton Mike Gallion tests a chainsaw he’s repairing. He has lived on Whidbey Island for decades and has always been interested in small engines and fishing.