Born in Ponza, Italy on January 31, 1922, Jim Mazzella came to America at the age of seven. He learned the English language, worked his way through grammar school, and eventually attended Toronto High School in Toronto, Ohio.
After high school, he moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 1939. It was there that he and his father, Antonio, set up the first-ever rigging shop for the Wire Rope Corporation of America (WIRECO).
In 1941, Mazzella joined the U.S. Navy where he went to work as one of 325,000 Seabees constructing bridges, roads, hospitals, and warehouses during World War II on Guam and elsewhere in the South Pacific.
After the war, Mazzella met his future wife, Phyllis. They married June 29, 1946, in Charleston, West Virgina. They had four children over the next 13 years—Jean, Carolyn, Tony, and Jim.
After briefly running his own rigging business in Charleston, Mazzella moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he worked for The Frank Morrison Company. In 1954, he opened his own rigging shop, Mazzella Wire Rope & Sling Company, known today as Mazzella Lifting Technologies. While handling all aspects of the business, Mazzella also invented a high-capacity lifting sling known as the Mazzella 7-Part Sling™. Its design is so unique that very few rigging shops in the world know how to make it.
Today, the company is owned by his sons, Tony and Jim. What was once a one-man operation has turned into seven locations, with over 130 employees.