In 1950, Dick Ray, recently the commanding officer of Navy LCI, started his own plumbing business.  He ws educated at the University of Washington in Seattle, and during the war was a graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut.  His family came to Kansas City from England during the gold rush and remained.  His Uncles helped lay the first sewer in Kansas City.

He started the plumbing company with a pair of pipe wrenches and nothing else.  Having no truck and not being able to afford one, he used the family car for a truck the first time.  He hauled pipe and heavy fittings in a trailer behind.  He had no help and did all the work himself.  His wife answered the phone in their home while busy raising their three children.  She took the service calls and Dick Ray took them from her by telephone and attended them.  Even in those days they offered 24 hour service.  The telephone rang beside his bed and Dick answered the phone all night long as customers phoned needing emergency overtime help.

In 1952, Dick bought his first truck, a used ford pickup, and continues to do all the work himself with occasional help of a neighbor.  In 1955, he rented a frame building measuring 400 sq. ft. in Prairie Village where for the first time he was able to store larger quantities of material away from his home.

The Ray's first born child was a boy, Dick Ray II and he was serious minded, very mechanical young man.  He grew up in the plumbing business, cleaning our trucks on Saturday, restocking, sweeping, digging ditches, emptying the tool trays for the plumbers and straightening the tools in each of their trucks.  By the time he was sixteen, he knew as much about the plumbing business as many mature plumbers.  Between jobs he earned an Eagle Scout Badge.

In 1966, Dick II was the winner of early $4,000 scholarship awarded to one son of a plumber in the United States.  He used this money to put himself through Kansas State University at Manhattan, working summers to earn any money not covered by the scholarship.  In 1971, he graduated cum laude in Mechanical Engineering.

After that, he completed his scholastic work for a masters degree, lacking only a thesis to receive his honor.

In 1972, after bumming his way around the world on a motorcycle, Dick II returned to the family business, settled down and began for the first time full-time work with the company.

In 1974, Dick II passed the demanding master plumber's examination which makes him licensed in Kansas and Missouri.  Then he passed another grueling set of examinations which similarly licensed him to do warm air heating supervision and air conditioning supervision.  Then Dick I stepped down as general manager as his son stepped in.  The father and son work well together.  The serious- minded, mechanical engineer's son does a good job in the day-to-day nuts and bolts minding of the shop.  Dick Ray I does advertising and estimating.  The business has grown to include a fleet of radio controlled trucks, each of which is complete shop on wheels.  The firm is now the largest firm in Kansas City dedicated to the plumbing, heating and cooling repair and remodeling business.  The largest... although still non-union.

The family that came to Kansas City six generations ago and helped lay the first sewer is still going strong, doing a conscientious job of plumbing, heating and cooling.