A family business in Cobbs Creek is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and is seeing a fourth generation priming itself to be involved.

Cobbs Creek Body Works, located in Willow Oak Industrial Park, was established in 1978 by the late Raymond N. Lowe and his wife, Eileen, in partnership with their son John Lowe and his wife, Connie. Various family members have been involved in the business over time, but it is now in the hands of John and Connie and their three children—Jonathan, Nathan and Heather.

The business started out in a single building offering body repair and painting. But the car repair business was competitive, said John, and “we knew we had to find a niche—go after something somebody else wasn’t already doing.” That something, they decided, was heavy trucks.

So in 1981, John’s brother Michael Lowe joined the business, and it was decided that their father would get out of the shop and go on the road as a salesman for the compan...