Meet Anthony LaMacchia, Assembly Supervisor at HURST Jaws of Life. If you ask Anthony what his job entails, you’ll get a simple answer: Making sure the tools are built right.

“The person that has the wreck has more to worry about than whether the tool is working,” LaMacchia said. “I make sure they don’t have to worry about the tool.”

It’s a job he takes very seriously. “The passion we have makes Jaws of Life the best tool out there. We know that if a tool fails, we fail. So we’re going to stay on top no matter what it takes,” he said.

LaMacchia grew up in California and moved to North Carolina to be closer to his mother and her extended family more than two decades ago. He’s been with HURST ever since.

“I’ve been coming here 22 years, and I still love coming to work,” LaMacchia said. “It’s more like a family than a job. The people here building tools? They’re just like family.

“We’re all very passionate,” he added. “It means a lot to us to make sure the tools work for first responders, and the stories we hear from them keep us going.”

HURST Jaws of Life is headquartered in a small town called Shelby in the foothills of North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains, where LaMacchia takes advantage of the rolling terrain. He and his wife, Sherry, who have seven children and stepchildren, each own Harley Davidson motorcycles and in their down time can be found biking on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

When asked what he’d be doing if he wasn’t at HURST Jaws of Life, he laughs as if he can’t imagine anything else. “When you move 3,000 miles away, well, it was pretty much the Lord calling me to do this job,” he said.