Who’s behind the tools at HURST Jaws of Life®? It’s accountants like Courtney McKenzie, who runs on coffee, likes LEGO® bricks, and learned about the rescue tool called Jaws of Life long before a recruiter ever called to lure her mathematical mind to HURST.

Early in her career, Courtney worked at a paper manufacturer, which had HURST Jaws of Life on site as part of its emergency response plan. She remembers an incident when the precaution helped save a life.

“ ‘Bring the Jaws!’ they yelled,” Courtney said. “They called it by name. So, I knew about Jaws of Life long before I came to work here.”

It was when Courtney got a job in the accounting department of a car dealership back home in Joliet, Illinois, that she found her love for numbers. She went back to school to study accounting, and she now holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration in accounting and is working toward completing her MBA. She worked at two accounting firms as a staff accountant and financial auditor before joining HURST Jaws of Life late last year as a Cost and FP&A Analyst.

While Courtney’s analytical left brain gets all the glory at work, once she’s off duty she lets her creative right brain loose. She likes to crotchet and paint, and she’s on trend with the popular old-is-new approach to design in her project of repurposing old tile and metal to make new decorative items for her home.

To top off all that activity, she also keeps up with her two small sons, which is where she became enamored with LEGO’s and an array of quirky collectibles that she keeps on her desk at work.

“I like puzzles, and I like solving things. I’m also just generally happy,” she says, when asked to describe herself. We’re happy, too -– glad that Courtney joined our team to work as part of our #BehindTheTools team providing first responders with the unstoppable HURST Jaws of Life.