Patrick Kinney

I never planned on getting into roofing. I was coaching baseball and was perfectly happy.

A friend I’d been training with since I was 16 was getting into the industry and convinced me to come along. I told him no more than once. But he wore me down, and I ended up spending the next seven-plus years in Southwest Florida learning the trade from the ground up.

I went to school at Southeastern University in Lakeland and worked everywhere from Naples to Orlando. A lot of that time was on the insurance side of things, helping homeowners who were getting told no by their insurance company when they clearly had damage. People with shingles ripped off their roof stuck with a band-aid fix because an adjuster wouldn’t approve the full repair. We’d use our knowledge of building code and manufacturer specs to fight those decisions and get families what they actually needed.

That’s what hooked me. Not the roofing itself at first, but the fact that I could genuinely help people in a tough spot. From there I went deep. I spent countless hours with engineers learning how building code works, what causes damage, how repairs have to be made. I got to the point where I was doing corporate rep work and sitting in on trials when insurance claims went to litigation. I became obsessed with understanding the craft. After investing that kind of time, I couldn’t picture myself in any other industry.

But Florida was never the long-term plan.

People think I’m crazy for leaving. I always tell them you don’t know what it’s like at 85 degrees at midnight, stepping outside and you’re just immediately soaked. I was on roofs all day in that heat. When I wasn’t working, the last thing I wanted to do was go to the beach. I just needed AC. My family is in Indiana. The people I care about are here. That’s what matters.

Cameron and I have been close since high school at Baptist Academy. I played baseball in college, he went into logistics, but we always stayed connected. When I moved back to Indy in 2021, I brought the idea to him. Let’s start a roofing company and do it the right way. He took some convincing because he was doing well in his career, but the conversations kept coming back to the same thing. If we make promises to people, we need to be the ones standing behind them.

At previous companies, the roofs were done well, but the mentality was get in, get out, and hopefully never hear from the customer again. That’s just not me. I’m someone who wants to know the person I helped actually had a great experience. I want to run into them at the store and have them tell me they appreciated how we handled things. That’s what gets me up in the morning.

Outside of Raptor, I’m pretty simple. Golf is probably my number one thing. I’m always reading or listening to something that makes me better, whether that’s a book on negotiation or something about health and performance. I’m competitive by nature. Played baseball my whole life and I think that drive to improve and prepare and outwork people carries into everything I do.

If I wasn’t in roofing, I’d probably be coaching somewhere. Baseball, basketball, golf. Doesn’t matter. I love helping people get better at things. That’s really what Raptor is too when you think about it. We’re constantly trying to get better, take care of our people, and make sure every customer walks away feeling like they were treated the right way.

If you need a roofer you can trust or you’re looking for a great place to work, let’s talk