How do you create a business that will be around for 100 years?

It used to be that a person would make a commitment to a company and keep that job until they retired. It was very unusual to change jobs. Then corporations started downsizing, jobs moved offshore, and outsourcing became the way of business. That is, except for one Binghamton company, Cook Brothers Truck Parts.

This year Cook Brothers celebrates 100 years in business. In 1918 George A. Brockway, the owner of a truck manufacturing company found himself needing an outlet in Binghamton and Everett Cook was a businessman who felt that he could create a successful operation selling and servicing his friend’s flagship vehicles.

Cook Brothers Truck Parts may have started out as a business that grew out of a mutual need but it succeeded because of a  commitment to, and a respect for, the people that became part of the company.

The company is very proud of the fact that generations of families have been a part of the organization.

Henry B. Cook, Jr., President of the company, has said “We don’t just have employees that spend most of their entire professional life at Cook Brothers, we have multiple employees whose parents or siblings or children have also worked at Cook Brothers.  In this sense, Cook Brothers is not just a Cook family business – they truly are a family of hard working individuals that try every day to give our customers the best products with the best service in the industry.”

And that is how a business continues to thrive a hundred years later.