This is not the common family-owned, father-to-son hand-off business story; but then, this is not a typical body shop.
“I never saw him until he was 12 or 13,” Chris Raeder says of his eldest son, “and saw him one week a year, until he was 18 or 20.” Raeder is dad to Robbie Mulderrig, general manager running one of four body shops for the Texas multi-shop operator Raeder owns, Autocraft Bodywerks.
They didn’t come together like a normal family and they’re not growing Autocraft in average ways, either. It has four locations in 11 years; and is multiple OEM certified, authorized, or getting more top-shelf brands.
The most recent addition: in Spicewood, “the most beautiful shop in the country,” says Robbie, who runs it, and who isn’t kidding.
Like a family
When Robbie was the most recent addition, Chris and his wife Kate weren’t married, they were in college, in New York. Chris was at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He would eventually earn a Ph.D. out west, and do 20 years for chip-and-wafer maker AMD…