For nearly 40 years, firefighters across the country have been saving lives while using trucks custom-built in Carbon County.

On Friday, dozens of workers at KME in Nesquehoning completed their final shift, wrapping up work on the final vehicle to come out of the facility - a 109-foot rear mount ladder truck for Lehighton Fire Department.

The final shift had employees reflecting on long careers building vehicles which helped first responders and brought pride to the area.

“We were building fire trucks for people that saved friends’ lives, relations’ lives, all over the United States,” said Bill Remaley, a Lehighton resident who worked 39 years as a welder in the facility.

KME was founded in the mid-1980s by John “Sonny” Kovatch as Kovatch Mobile Equipment Inc., and was once the country’s largest family-owned fire truck manufacturer. Sonny Kovatch died in 2011 and in 2016 the company was sold to REV Group, a corporation which owns multiple fire truck brands.

Over the decades, KME established a nationwide reputation for building trucks from the ground up, to the exact specifications of its customers. The Nesquehoning facility produced more than 10,000 fire trucks, used everywhere from small towns to New York City and Los Angeles.

“Our product is the best. You’re just not going to match it,” said Len Rehatchek, who worked for KME from the beginning to the end.

At one time, the Nesquehoning facility employed about 800 workers, most of them residents of Carbon and Schuylkill counties. Many would come to work straight from local high schools or Carbon Career and Technical Institute.

“This place held this town and valley together for a long time,” said Rich Staneck, an electrician.

KME offered a unique opportunity to work in advanced manufacturing in their own backyards. Many of the workers at the Nesquehoning facility stayed for decades. REV Group said Friday that the current workforce had an average of 19 years of service at the plant.

Multiple generations worked side by side in the plant. And those who weren’t related, became like family.

“We all had each other’s back here,” said Steve Lucykanish, a 37-year-old electrician who put in 20 years.

About 90 workers lost their jobs Friday. A handful will remain as the company completes the transition to other facilities.

KME employed about 350 people in September when the company announced it was closing its facilities in Nesquehoning and Virginia. REV said in a statement Friday that workers were given the option to relocate.

“We are grateful to our entire KME team, who have worked with us over the years to build the KME brand, and have helped transition production to our other facilities,” REV Fire Group President Kent Tyler said in a statement.

Appropriately, the final truck produced in Nesquehoning will remain in Carbon County serving Lehighton residents. A worker who didn’t want to be named called it the ‘last real KME’.

REV will continue to produce KME fire trucks from a Louisiana facility, which also produces trucks for multiple brands. One of the reasons that REV cited for moving production out of Nesquehoning was the potential to use advanced manufacturing capabilities.

KME’s approach was time-tested, and labor-intensive. Workers took pride in using their skills, not just repeating tasks in an assembly line. Each custom order required problem solving.

“That mentality of doing things is going away,” Staneck said.

That approach inspired pride in the people who built the trucks, something they will retain for a long time after the facility is closed. Fabricator Ed Klementovic said that it was simply an honor and privilege to build KME trucks.

“I built it like it was for me. I built it as my own,” he said.