Ed Jolley: Retiring After 37+ Years

Editor’s Note: Another Mack is ME! post, this series spotlights the people and personalities behind our services. Check back frequently or subscribe to the feed, as these profiles will be interspersed with news updates on a regular basis. We hope you’ll enjoy getting to know us!

Ed Jolley, Tool Room Manager, Cavendish Plant

Name: Ed Jolley

Title: Tool Room Manager, Cavendish Plant

His job? Home to some 450 tools, the Cavendish tool room has been under Ed’s management for the past 37 years, when he joined the company full-time in his current position. Before that, he worked summers and weekends for Mack, starting when he was in high school in 1966 and continuing through college. As tool room manager, Ed and his team are responsible for maintaining the molds and getting them prepared for production. But beyond that, they also build gauges, fixtures, degating equipment — basically, anything the business needs.

Favorite Mack memory: “I was still in high school when I started working summers at the Cavendish plant,” Ed recollects. “During my first summer, I worked on the maintenance crew with Don Kendall (current CEO and President) and John Macksey’s brother (John is currently molding manager, Arlington Plant). We were tasked with removing some big brick boilers from the boiler room. I’ll never forget all of us banging on boilers and wheeling out the rubble in wheelbarrows. It was hard work, but we had fun!”

Experience: Ed graduated from Vermont Technical College (Randolph, Vt.) with an associate’s degree in mechanical engineering. During college, he worked summers and weekends at Mack’s Cavendish Plant. Following graduation, he joined the engineering department at what was then Mack’s headquarters in Arlington, Vt. (now known as the East Arlington Plant). Shortly thereafter, he moved to Connecticut to work for Napco, a plastics manufacturing company in Bristol. Four years later, his current position opened up at the Cavendish Plant, and he was drawn back to his hometown.

Personal life: Ed is a Vermonter through and through. Born and raised in Cavendish, he has two sisters, who also live in Vermont. For many years, Ed lived just down the street from the plant, and walked to work every day. About 18 years ago, he moved to Rockingham (about a 30-minute drive from the plant), where he currently resides with his wife, Michele Delhaye. “When I first moved to Rockingham, just the act of getting into my car to drive to work seemed foreign to me,” he recalls.

Ed and wife, Michele, hiking in the White Mountains.

When not at work: Ed and Michele are dog lovers, particularly Basset Hounds and Golden Retrievers. “At one point, we had five Bassets and a Golden Retriever,” he says. Currently down to three — one Golden, Spencer, and two Bassets, Eleanor and Lexi – they live in a rural area close to hiking, kayaking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing — a perfect location for Ed, Michele and their canine friends. Ed is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Springfield Humane Society. In addition to board duties, he volunteers for the group at fundraising events.

Life after Mack: Ed and Michele have added a camping trailer to their outdoor lifestyle, and plan to spend lots of time using it to tour and camp around New England. He also plans to restore a 1948 Ford 8N tractor. And once he sifts through “several repair and paint projects around the house,” Ed wants to volunteer at a nearby recycling center a couple days each week and work part-time for a friend in the logging business.

Please join us in wishing Ed all the best in his very active retirement!