Ray Bowens has officially lost his mind. That’s what Wallace and Honey Bowens were thinking when their son quit a cushy job in Bank of America’s technology department on April 8, 2005, to open an auto repair shop. Wallace and Honey weren’t being irrational, either. Ray was 50 years old when he took this bold leap of faith. He also had a wife, daughter, and a mountain of responsibilities.
Oh—and he didn’t know a thing about cars. In fact, he’d spent years saying he didn’t trust mechanics.
“I remember mom asking, ‘Are you going through that midlife crisis?’” Ray said with a laugh. “They were country folk and were used to visiting me in the big green building in Dallas. Every time they drove past it, they took pride in knowing their son was up there.”
Eventually, Ray coaxed Wallace and Honey into visiting his newly opened Kwik Kar Vista Ridge shop in Lewisville. And what they saw next eased their concerns faster than they ever could have imagined. The place was packed. Every bay was full. Cars were lined up in the parking lot. His mechanics moved with purpose, stopping only to ask him questions or give updates. Customers greeted Ray like an old friend—smiling, shaking hands, and chatting about everything from repairs to life.
“All they could do was smile,” Ray said of his parents’ reaction. “They said, ‘Son, we think you made the right decision.’ I’d always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I had a ton of confidence that I could do it well. But I also didn’t know anyone in that world.
“It was awesome to know my parents were behind me.”
Fast-forward 21 years, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Lewisville, Flower Mound, and surrounding communities who doesn’t know Ray Bowens. That said, his rise to success as a businessman is just one chapter.
Over the years, Ray, a longtime Flower Mound resident, has made a more significant impact as a mentor, a connector, a steady voice in the community, and the kind of leader people turn to for guidance, inspiration, and heart. A veteran with a heart of gold, he has served on the boards of directors for roughly 10 organizations, ranging from his church to local chambers of commerce, Rotary, nonprofits, and local colleges. He also works closely with disabled veteran organizations in North Texas and offers free consulting services for young entrepreneurs who want to follow in his footsteps.
He’s also a great person to turn to for a few laughs.
He likes to joke that he still doesn’t know a thing about cars, even at 71 years of age.
Ask him for a business card, and he’ll hand you one with a cartoon picture of himself with “Stand Up Philosopher” on the front.
He will tell you all about his wife of 47 years, Earma, his daughter, son-in-law, two grandkids, and his love for traveling the world. And if you’re lucky, he might even tell you about his secret and mouth-watering side gig, Ray’s Backyard BBQ.
“People talk all the time about how you can never have as much fun as you did when you were a kid. But I’m having more fun now than I ever had before,” he said. “I figure I’ll keep doing that until the wheels fall off. It’s just too much fun right now.”
To truly understand Ray’s ambition, you have to start at the beginning. His story starts in the small town of Crockett, Texas, on a farm 14 miles outside of town. Ray was the eighth of 12 children born to Wallace and Honey Bowens, though little Ray was born premature and wasn’t expected to survive at first. Thankfully, he overcame those expectations, too.
The Bowens family lived a simple, hardworking life. Everyone pitched in from sunup to sundown, tending crops and livestock to make an honest living. Meanwhile, Sundays were reserved for church—no exceptions. It was a life built on discipline, faith, and family. It was just like any other humble, country life. But even with roll-up-your-sleeves hard work around every corner, Ray found his fair share of quiet moments to feed his imagination and curiosity about life beyond the farm.
“I was a quiet kid and a big-time reader. Any extra money I had went into buying more books,” he said. “My school had a library, of course, and I read so much that I won an award for reading 170 books in the 7th grade alone. Mom would often notice a flashlight on in our room late at night—there I’d be reading another book. It was just what I did with whatever downtime I had.”
While Ray was open to reading about anything—particularly if it involved letting his mind escape to new and imaginative worlds—he grew up during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and remembers being in elementary school as the world outside his rural community underwent significant changes. Those early experiences shaped his worldview and instilled in him a drive to keep moving forward, even when the odds were stacked against him.
Ray went to college after high school, but money was tight. One day between classes, he wandered into a military recruitment office to, in his words, “mess with the guy.” He had absolutely no intention of joining the military, but ended up coming face-to-face with the world’s best salesmen and walked out with a two-year enlistment in the Marines.
Ray’s home station was in Japan, but he traveled the globe as a communications specialist for the prestigious Air Wing Squadron. He never found himself in the middle of an active war, though he did help with evacuations when South Vietnam fell in 1974.
“When my service was over, I went back to college and got a degree in computer science at Dallas Baptist University,” Ray said. “I spent the next 30 years with Bank of America as an IT guy, and I was good at it. However, I’ve always been a unique blend of a tech-savvy individual and a people-oriented person. I saw myself doing something more with my life, and starting a business made sense to me.”
He added, “Again, my parents thought I was having a midlife crisis. But Earma and I had always been smart. We were in good shape financially to make a significant break like that and try something new. All I knew was that I didn’t want to go right back to IT.”
His answer? Auto repair. And while that decision may not have made sense to some at first, it was exactly what Ray needed.
“I really didn’t know a thing about cars, but I believed in helping people,” he said. “More than just being a business owner, though, I wanted to be a good example in the community for young people wanting to start their own businesses. I could also volunteer and be involved in different organizations. Being a business owner gave me the flexibility to do all those things.”
Decades later, Ray has touched more lives than he ever imagined—yes, through oil changes and tire rotations, but also through encouragement, service, presence, hard work, faith, and a humble attitude toward life that anyone would want to emulate.
But that’s just Ray being Ray—and no one would expect anything different.
