The Local Locksmith Company opened for operation in August 2021. Since then, the company’s owner, and a Carbondale local, Ethan McVoy, has been helping those stuck outside their homes or vehicles. He shared with The Sopris Sun a little about himself and the locksmithing trade. This interview was edited for length and will be run in its entirety during Everything Under the Sun this Thursday, June 26, on KDNK at 4 p.m.
We go back; it’s lovely to see a fellow Carbondalian doing well and starting their own business.
Yeah, it feels great. It feels good to be able to represent the community and be there for people when they need me.
I imagine, in your line of work, that people need you quite frequently to get out of a pinch.
Absolutely. Any hour of the day I’m available. I’m happy to help out wherever I can and if I get woken up I can always go back to sleep.
What is the name of your business?
I’m the owner of the Local Locksmith Company, based right here out of Carbondale, Colorado. We’re technically called the Local Locksmith, LLC, but Local Locksmith Company is what we like to go by.
Let’s hear a little more about you. Where were you born?
I was born at the Aspen Valley Hospital. I’ve lived in Carbondale my whole life, besides the years I was in college in Washington state.
Didn’t you grow up right there on the Crystal River?
Yep, right near CRMS [Colorado Rocky Mountain School]. My sister went to CRMS before me and then I ended up going as well — one of the best experiences of my life.
What came before locksmithing?
I was the printing press operator for the Aspen Daily News. It was great and I loved every minute of it. I was the press operator for four years — I worked there for five. I started as a, for lack of a better term, paper stacker; everytime a paper was cut we had to stack them up and get them shipped out. I learned from scratch and learned a lot in a short amount of time about how to run a big machine like that.
With your current job, do you get a lot of calls at night?
Yeah, I do. It’s always hard to predict when you’re going to get a call, but the goal is to be available whenever someone calls.
Would you consider yourself a night owl?
I’m still a night owl. I’ve had a hard time getting off the printing-press schedule, [though] it’s been since 2017.
Has your mind always had an allure for mechanisms, going from the printing press to something as small as a lock?
It’s probably from when I was a kid. I had more toys that were taken apart than were actually intact. I liked taking stuff apart and seeing how it worked. Then, going from something big to something really small was definitely an adjustment. … Where a printing press is closer to the workings of a car in a way — it’s got a drive shaft and all that sort of stuff — a lock is much more simple than that; there’s really only so many moving parts.
What is your service area?
It can vary quite a bit, but generally I’ll go all the way up to Aspen, to Marble, down to Rifle (sometimes a little further, if necessary) and then out to Eagle. …There’s so many variables in this industry that it’s really hard to predict exactly where you’re going to go, so you always just try to have a full tank of gas and be there as quickly as you can.
What are the most typical calls?
The most frequent call I get at this point is someone either being locked out of their car, home or office. The next would probably be car keys …I think that happens more in the winter — people are skiing and they’ll lose their keys on the mountain.
So, you make car keys?
I make car keys. I cut, program and do anything that’s needed for car keys. I can replace cylinders and all that stuff. All I need is a place where a key goes in … and I can use a special tool to pick it and decode it.
What separates your company from other locksmith companies?
I would say, my ability and desire to go above and beyond. I think that my personality and ability to empathize with people and work with them is what would separate me from other security professionals in the area.
Editor’s note: James Steindler and Ethan McVoy are childhood friends.