“These things have to run 100 percent 100 percent of the time,” are the words that Hutchinson Fire Department mechanic Rick Spitler lives by when it comes to taking care of the department’s equipment. Spitler has been turning a wrench since he was 14 years old and broke a tooth when a driveshaft fell on him while he was changing it. For the past four years, he’s been the mechanic responsible for keeping all of HFD’s fire engines rolling. “When I got into high school, I was in shop class, and I figured out I could take stuff apart, put it back together, and it worked,” Spitler said. After high school, Spitler worked with his dad on mobile homes and then worked for the Buhler School District, maintaining and repairing school buses, before spending 18 years working on semis, which led him to the Hutchinson Fire Department.
Read more: The Hutchinson Tribune
