Their armor consists of a good pair of jeans and some hard-toedboots. Their weapons are wrenches, utility knives and deep bluepipe glue. They ride into battle on one-ton trucks, bristling withlong tubes of PVC and rattling with the sound of a thousands pipejoints.

The men who work for Ross Jackson Plumbing are Lincoln County’spremier plumbers, tackling a host of residential and industrialjobs with an arsenal of knowledge and the support of a company with50 years of experience. Operating out of a little office on BeesonRoad, the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce’s SmallBusiness of the Month for July has cast aside the recession andfound success, plumbing away for a long list of clients.

“We’ve had a good year. Honestly, I can say we’ve had several goodyears,” said Robbie Jackson, vice president. “We’ve decided not toparticipate in the downturn.”

One reason the small, family-owned business has been able to thrivein the midst of a two-year economic downturn is its flexibility andadaptable skill set. When Ross Jackson – Robbie’s father andcompany president, who still gets involved in the daily work load -founded the company more than five decades ago, he was thinkingbeyond simple work in the bathroom.

Ross Jackson Plumbing isn’t just the company that fixes the toilet- although they can do that, too – but rather the company thatmasters any system in which water is moved. The company can installand repair complete systems for new buildings, commercialenterprises and private residences. It can also take on drainageprojects, sewage jobs and install septic tanks.

“We do anything that pertains to plumbing,” Jackson said. “Fromfixing one toilet in your house to installing 50 newtoilets.”

To handle such a load, Ross Jackson Plumbing employs 18 workers whodivide into seven crews and hit the road in a small fleet of trucksevery morning.

And there’s no shortage of work. Ross Jackson Plumbing is open from7 a.m. until 5 p.m. on weekdays, and a plumber is on call everynight and throughout weekends to respond to emergency calls. If thewater main bursts at 2 a.m., rousing the family from sleep onSaturday night, the company’s men will risk being late for churchnext morning and respond to fix the leak.

Cliff Brumfield, executive vice president of the chamber, said RossJackson Plumbing’s longevity and impressive body of work in thecommunity was the “driving factor” behind the chamber’s decision toname the company Small Business of the Month.

“They’ve been there for us for generations,” he said. “Theirservices are something everybody needs, year in and year out.”