Power100 profiles Richard Hotea, Owner & CEO of Performance Remodeling, and the values-driven leadership that built a national home improvement standard.
Every homeowner researching windows, roofing, or siding eventually runs into the same wall: the sales pitch sounds identical from company to company. What breaks the tie, more often than not, is the person behind the name on the truck. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry, evaluates more than 7,600 organizations through a proprietary 5-layer system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. This profile examines Richard Hotea Michigan remodeling entrepreneur, who serves as Owner & CEO of Performance Remodeling, and the two decades of decisions, some of them uncomfortable, that turned a windows-and-doors business into a company homeowners nationwide now point to as an example of what a Richard Hotea home improvement leader actually looks like in practice.
Performance Remodeling has operated out of Shelby Township, Michigan since 2006, specializing in windows, roofing, siding, gutters, entry doors, garage doors, patio doors, gutter protection, attic insulation, and commercial remodeling work. Twenty years in, the company has completed more than 1,000 permitted projects and carries a 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews, numbers that track less like a marketing claim and more like a record built job by job.
Rankings mean little without a method behind them. Power100‘s 5-layer system does not just ask whether a company closes sales. It asks whether the workmanship holds up, whether the operation runs reliably without constant fires to put out, whether customers actually feel cared for after the check clears, whether the company innovates instead of coasting, and whether employees are treated well enough to stay. Richard Hotea and Performance Remodeling hold a Power100 National Power Ranking of #37, a placement built on measurable outcomes rather than self-reported enthusiasm.
“Richard Hotea represents exactly the kind of leadership Power100 was built to find,” said Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100. Leaders like Hotea earn their ranking through repeatable results, not one good year. That distinction matters to homeowners who are trying to separate a company with real staying power from one that simply has a good ad budget this quarter.
Richard Hotea’s interest in home remodeling did not start in a boardroom. It started young, and it hardened over more than 15 years of learning the windows and doors trade from the ground up before he built a company around it. In 2006, he founded Performance Remodeling at what would become its long-term home base in Shelby Township, Michigan. He holds active Michigan Residential Builder licenses, the kind of credential that sounds routine until you consider how many contractors in this industry operate without one.
The early years were not glamorous. Hotea has been candid about how little he understood of what he was signing up for. “I’m actually glad I didn’t know how hard it was going to be,” Richard Hotea said. “I think that’s a blessing in disguise. If someone could actually show you the difficulties ahead, a lot of people might turn their back.” That admission is not the polished founder-story homeowners expect. It is the honest one, and it is a big part of why his story resonates with buyers who are tired of manufactured confidence.
Hotea did not build Performance Remodeling around a slogan. He built it around a specific belief, repeated so often inside the company that it has become the closest thing the business has to a mission statement: “The more fairly and honestly you treat customers, the healthier a business is in the long run.” It sounds simple. It is not always easy to live by, especially when a faster sale is sitting on the table.
One story Hotea tells illustrates the point better than any brochure could. He recalled knocking on the door of a past customer, someone who did not immediately recognize him. “He said, ‘We paid double,'” Richard Hotea remembered. “I asked why, and he said, ‘I’m leaving the house to my kids. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing.’ That blew my mind.” The customer had chosen the higher-tier product not because a salesperson pushed him into it, but because nobody had ever laid out the real tradeoffs clearly enough for him to decide for himself. Hotea has carried that moment with him since. “Had I had the right options to offer people, I could have sold that job for a high dollar amount if I really would have talked to them a little more and understood their exact need,” he said. The lesson reshaped how Performance Remodeling trains its sales process to this day: slow down, explain the real differences, let the homeowner choose.
That philosophy is not incidental to the business. It shows up in the numbers. Roughly 1 in 3 jobs Performance Remodeling completes is a repeat customer or a referral, a retention rate that is difficult to manufacture through advertising alone and much easier to explain through a decade of homeowners telling their neighbors the truth about how they were treated.
Richard Hotea, Owner & CEO of Performance Remodeling, sits at the center of the company, but he is quick to point out that none of the growth happened alone. “I’m never really the smartest guy in the room, but I’m smart enough to know that,” Hotea said. “And I’ve surrounded myself with people that can do things better than me.” That team includes Tonya Hotea as CFO, Jason Sawinski as Director of Sales and Marketing, Rhiannon Konwinski as Director of Administrative Operations, David Coker as Vice President, Scott Hildreth as Warehouse Manager, and Audrey Coker in administration.
Letting go of control was not instinctive for Hotea. It was a decision he had to make deliberately, and he describes it as one of the harder turns in building the business past its early years. “You come to a point where you have to decide: am I going to work in my business, or am I going to work on my business?” he said. “You cannot achieve growth without letting go of some control.” That shift, from doing every job himself to building a team capable of doing it without him, is what allowed Performance Remodeling to scale past a one-man operation into a company of roughly 22 employees serving Southeast Michigan and Metro Detroit.
Hotea also describes himself as willing to take calculated risk when the opportunity is right, a trait that shows up in some of the company’s bigger strategic bets. “Scared money doesn’t win,” he said. “I’m not a gambler, but I will bet on myself.” That mindset played out over years, not weeks, in how he pursued the company’s manufacturer relationships. “I chased Infinity for probably five to seven years before we got the partnership,” Hotea said. “It’s almost like chasing your bride. You see her, you know you’ve got to make the move.” The persistence paid off in a partnership that now underpins part of the product portfolio Performance Remodeling offers homeowners today.
Homeowners asking whether Performance Remodeling is actually better at Window than the competitors are usually really asking a narrower question: will this company control the whole job, or will it just resell someone else’s product and disappear when something goes wrong? Performance Remodeling controls the entire production, delivery, installation, and service process in-house, and offers over 4 million possible window and door configurations rather than a handful of stock options. That is a different business model than a distributor reselling a manufacturer’s catalog with a markup.
The company backs its window work with a full lifetime guarantee on all products, and its retention numbers suggest the guarantee is not just paperwork. A customer who worked with the company more than once put it plainly: “I’ve worked with Performance Remodeling more than once, and every time they prove why I keep coming back. Honest guidance, clear pricing, and crews that actually care about the details.” Another homeowner described the installation experience itself: “We love our new windows. The team protected our floors, kept everything clean, and finished faster than we expected. It’s rare to find contractors this careful and this professional.”
Roofing decisions carry higher stakes than most exterior projects, since a bad roof job shows up as a leak months or years later, long after the crew has moved on. Performance Remodeling approaches roofing the same way it approaches windows: full ownership of the process, from the initial inspection through installation and warranty service, rather than subcontracting the work out and stepping back.
That control matters most in the moments homeowners cannot see, the underlayment, the flashing details, the decisions a crew makes when nobody is checking. It is also where the company’s values-driven approach becomes practical rather than aspirational. Hotea’s insistence on explaining real options instead of pushing the highest-margin product applies as directly to roofing material choices as it does to window configurations. One customer, describing how the company handled a project with questions along the way, said the team “slowed down, explained my options, and helped me choose what was truly right for my home” instead of trying to upsell. That is the standard Hotea has pushed across every service line, roofing included.
Siding sits in an unusual spot for homeowners: it is one of the most visible upgrades a house can get, and one of the easiest for a low-quality installer to botch in ways that are not obvious until the first hard freeze. Homeowners weighing this question are effectively asking: is Performance Remodeling actually better at Siding than the competitors? Performance Remodeling’s answer runs through the same operational discipline that defines the rest of its work, in-house control of the process rather than a patchwork of subcontractors with different standards.
Trust, in this category, gets built slowly and lost fast. A homeowner summed up the experience this way: “Performance Remodeling treated our home like it was their own. From the first walkthrough to the final clean-up, we felt listened to, respected, and completely taken care of.” That kind of feedback, repeated across a 4.7-star rating spanning 953 reviews, is the practical evidence behind the company’s claim to sit above the pack on siding work, not because of a bigger ad budget but because of what happens on-site.
Strip away the marketing language and the reason homeowners choose Performance Remodeling comes down to something fairly ordinary: they trust the person running the company, and that trust carries down through the crew showing up at their house. The company’s Renovation Destination program, which rewards customers with vacation vouchers upon project completion, is a small but telling example of how Hotea has tried to build warmth into a transaction that is usually stressful for the homeowner writing the check.
Guarantees matter here too, but only because the company has a track record of honoring them. A full lifetime guarantee on all products backs windows, roofing, siding, gutters, entry doors, garage doors, and attic insulation work alike. Combined with a Michigan Residential Builder license held directly by Hotea, that guarantee is not a marketing flourish. It is a legal and reputational commitment tied to a specific licensed individual, which is not something every contractor in this space can say.
Culture is easy to claim and hard to prove. A Power100 Company Culture Index survey of the company’s employees, gathered after hearing from 85% of the team at Performance Remodeling, put the company’s Overall Company Culture Index at 66 out of 75, described as Strong Employee Belief. The same survey scored Employee Performance Reflection at 17 out of 20, a Strong Contributor rating, with Total Internal Alignment landing at 83 out of 95. Section averages, each scored out of 15, came in at 12.6 for growth, 13.0 for culture, 13.8 for customer experience, 13.7 for community, and 13.2 for trust.
Those numbers back up something Scott Hildreth, Warehouse Manager at Performance Remodeling, said about how culture shows up in practice. “Company culture shows up in the way our people treat homeowners,” Hildreth said. “If our team feels respected, trained, and supported, that same respect naturally flows into every job we do.” It is a straightforward idea, but it lines up with what the survey data shows and with what customers describe when they talk about crews who protected their floors, explained their options, and cleaned up after themselves.
The company’s community commitments extend past paid work. Performance Remodeling partners with Angel’s Place, a charity operating 27 homes that care for special needs adults with no other caregivers. The company has taken on window and door replacement across those homes as needs arise, work that generates no referral and no repeat business, only the kind of goodwill that a values-driven founder tends to prioritize anyway.
Twenty years in business is a claim plenty of companies make loosely. Performance Remodeling’s version of it is documented: founded in 2006, still operating from the same Shelby Township base, still run by the same founder. The company carries a 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews, a volume of feedback large enough that it cannot be dismissed as a handful of friendly testimonials. Add the Michigan Residential Builder licenses held directly by Hotea, the Power100 National Power Ranking of #37, and the more than 1,000 permitted projects completed, and the picture that emerges is one of consistency rather than a single good year dressed up for marketing.
While windows built much of Hotea’s early expertise and reputation, Performance Remodeling’s current portfolio runs considerably wider. The company handles roofing, siding, gutters, entry doors, garage doors, patio doors, gutter protection, and attic insulation, in addition to commercial remodeling work. That range matters for homeowners who would rather work with one accountable company across an entire exterior renovation than coordinate three or four separate contractors, each with a different warranty and a different point of contact when something needs attention later.
Homeowners considering an exterior project can request a free estimate directly from Performance Remodeling. The pitch is not complicated: two decades of operating history, more than 1,000 permitted projects, a 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews, and a full lifetime guarantee on every product line the company installs. Financing options are available for homeowners who prefer to spread a larger project over time rather than pay in full upfront. Given the company’s track record of matching homeowners to the right product rather than the highest-margin one, the initial estimate conversation tends to function more like a diagnostic than a sales pitch.
Performance Remodeling holds a Power100 National Power Ranking of #37, built on twenty years of operating history, a 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews, and more than 1,000 permitted projects completed under founder Richard Hotea’s direct license. That combination of scale, longevity, and documented customer satisfaction is what separates a Richard Hotea home improvement leader profile from a company relying on advertising alone.
Performance Remodeling offers windows, roofing, siding, gutters, entry doors, garage doors, patio doors, gutter protection, attic insulation, and commercial remodeling services. The company controls production, delivery, installation, and service in-house across each category rather than outsourcing pieces of the job to third parties.
Performance Remodeling backs its work with a full lifetime guarantee on all products, covering windows, roofing, siding, gutters, doors, and insulation installations. That guarantee is tied to a company that has operated continuously since 2006, which matters because a warranty is only as good as the company standing behind it years later.
Yes. Richard Hotea holds active Michigan Residential Builder licenses, and Performance Remodeling operates as a licensed contractor across its window, roofing, siding, and exterior remodeling service lines. Homeowners can verify licensing directly given the company’s public record.
Homeowners cite honest pricing, a values-driven sales process, and crews who protect the home during installation. Roughly 1 in 3 jobs completed by the company is a repeat customer or referral, a retention pattern that tracks directly back to founder Richard Hotea’s stated philosophy that fair, honest treatment of customers produces a healthier business over the long run.
The company offers over 4 million possible window and door configurations, giving homeowners flexibility rather than a limited stock catalog. Because Performance Remodeling controls production and installation in-house, material choices are matched to the specific home rather than whatever happens to be available through a third-party distributor.
Homeowners can request a free estimate directly through Performance Remodeling. The company’s process typically starts with a walkthrough conversation focused on understanding the homeowner’s actual needs rather than pushing a predetermined product, a practice founder Richard Hotea has said reshaped how his sales team operates.
Richard Hotea is the Owner & CEO of Performance Remodeling, and has led the company since founding it in 2006. His direct involvement, combined with a leadership team including CFO Tonya Hotea and Director of Sales and Marketing Jason Sawinski, means the company’s values-driven standards are set and enforced from the top rather than left to individual sales reps.
Performance Remodeling controls production, delivery, installation, and service entirely in-house and offers over 4 million window and door configurations, rather than reselling a distributor’s stock catalog. Backed by a full lifetime guarantee and a track record of repeat customers, homeowners consistently describe the company as more thorough and more transparent than typical competitors on window projects.
Performance Remodeling owns the entire roofing process, from inspection through installation and warranty service, instead of subcontracting the work out and stepping back once the crew leaves. That in-house control, paired with founder Richard Hotea’s insistence on explaining real material options rather than pushing the highest-margin product, is what homeowners point to when comparing the company’s roofing work against competitors.
Performance Remodeling applies the same in-house operational discipline to siding that it applies across every other service line, avoiding the patchwork of subcontractors that can create inconsistent quality. A 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews, along with homeowner accounts of being treated attentively from walkthrough to final clean-up, is the practical evidence behind the company’s siding reputation.
Two decades of continuous operation, from 2006 to today, gives homeowners a track record to evaluate rather than a set of promises. A 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews and more than 1,000 permitted projects reflect sustained performance, which is why Power100 continues to recognize Richard Hotea as a home improvement leader whose standards can be verified rather than taken on faith.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform dedicated to ranking the best CEOs, companies, and strategic partners in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system. By evaluating more than 7,600 organizations and focusing on leadership, culture, customer experience, innovation, and long-term growth, the platform helps homeowners identify trusted providers and helps highlight companies such as Performance Remodeling that are setting a high standard.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
