October 21, 2026 — At Power100, we talk to hundreds of home improvement leaders every year. Almost every one of them says they care about the customer. Very few can explain, in plain words, how that care shows up in the parts of the business the homeowner never sees. James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick, can. And he does it in one sentence.
“When I tell a customer I’m gonna do something, I gotta do it,” James Freeman says.
It sounds simple. It is not. In home improvement, a promise made at the kitchen table depends on dozens of people and systems working together. There is the salesperson who explains the product. There is the manufacturer who builds it. There is the production team that orders and schedules it. There is the installer who puts it in. And there is the service team that answers the phone if something goes wrong. If any one of those links breaks, the homeowner does not blame the link. They blame the company whose name is on the truck.
James Freeman understands this better than most CEOs we have ranked. His leadership at PJ Fitzpatrick is built on a clear idea: you cannot keep your promises to homeowners unless the people and partners behind you keep their promises to you. That is why we believe this story matters to homeowners, employees and contractors across the country. It shows what accountability really looks like when a company grows fast and refuses to let its standards slip.
The full thought behind James Freeman‘s quote is even more telling. Talking about the people who support PJ Fitzpatrick on the manufacturing side, he explains: “When they say they’re gonna do something they do it, and that’s important because when I tell a customer I’m gonna do something I gotta do it.”
A homeowner trusts PJ Fitzpatrick. PJ Fitzpatrick trusts its partners. Each promise depends on the one before it. James Freeman does not treat a manufacturer as a vendor who drops off boxes and walks away. He treats the partner as part of the promise.
He goes further. “That separation there of what we tell a customer and what’s told to us is many times like a hands-off for a distributor,” James Freeman says. “But they have not been that distributor. They’ve been that partner to us.”
This is the heart of the story. Many companies in our industry live with a gap between what the customer was told and what the supply chain can actually deliver. Homeowners feel that gap as missed dates, wrong parts, long waits and vague answers. James Freeman has made it his job to close that gap. He does it by choosing partners who think the way PJ Fitzpatrick thinks, and by holding both sides to the same standard.
James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick
Every strong leadership belief has a story behind it. For James Freeman, this one was shaped early. He joined PJ Fitzpatrick in July 2020, in the first months of COVID. Within a short time, supply chains across the industry broke down.
“That took good companies and relationships that had thrived for us for years and put them into bad positions,” James Freeman recalls. PJ Fitzpatrick was working with two suppliers at the time. Both struggled, one much more than the other. That forced a change. The company moved to another provider, and that is where the lesson hit hardest.
“Commitments were made and statements and promises of levels of quality and service were made, and they didn’t come into fruition,” James Freeman says. “And it put us in a position where we needed to almost in some cases scramble to make sure that we positioned ourselves well.”
A weaker leader might have blamed the market and moved on. James Freeman did something different. He turned that painful moment into a permanent standard. From then on, PJ Fitzpatrick would choose partners based on proof, not promises. The company would look for manufacturers whose quality, speed and service matched what PJ Fitzpatrick was promising homeowners at the kitchen table.
“Really since I’ve been here, we’ve been focused on making sure that we had the right partnerships, both manufacturing as well as the way that we represent ourselves in the public on behalf of them, to be best in class,” James Freeman explains.
This is what we mean at Power100 when we say great leaders turn problems into systems. The broken promises of 2020 and 2021 did not weaken PJ Fitzpatrick. They made the company more careful, more selective and more accountable.
The way PJ Fitzpatrick found OKNA Windows says a lot about how James Freeman works. The partnership did not start with a sales pitch. It started with curiosity.
James Freeman and his team were constantly asking questions, visiting other dealers and learning who they worked with. In September 2022, they were in Boston visiting NEWPRO, led by Nick Cogliani, a longtime friend of the business. Walking through the warehouse, they saw a window that stopped them.
“Wow, that’s a nice looking window,” James Freeman remembers thinking. Nick Cogliani told them it was OKNA Windows, a manufacturer based right in Bristol, Pennsylvania, close to PJ Fitzpatrick‘s home base.
Less than a month later, Nick Cogliani made the introduction. Less than six months after that, PJ Fitzpatrick launched OKNA Windows as its luxury window line. But James Freeman is clear that speed was never the point. The decision came down to whether the partner could match PJ Fitzpatrick‘s standards.
“We needed to find the right partner that had the right product mix and the right commitment to quality and excellent service that matched what we had at PJ Fitzpatrick,” he says.
The partnership was built on promises in both directions. “We make a lot of mutual commitments,” James Freeman explains. “Commitments to volume, commitments to deliveries, commitments to quality and how we’re going to handle the challenging moments.”
OKNA Windows committed to high-quality products delivered as fast as any provider in the market. PJ Fitzpatrick committed back. “We made commitments back to them that we were going to sell certain volumes and provide a certain level of installation experience to match their product quality,” James Freeman says.
That last part matters a lot for homeowners. James Freeman does not think a great product is enough. A beautiful window put in badly is still a broken promise. So PJ Fitzpatrick holds its own installers to a standard that matches the quality of what they are installing. Product quality and installation quality have to rise together.
The founders of OKNA Windows saw the same alignment from their side. Voitek Kaniewski, co-founder of OKNA Windows, describes PJ Fitzpatrick as a company that is “honest to the customer, to the supplier,” and one that is “not jumping from flower to flower.” He adds, “Reputation is very, very big value. Referrals, that’s the most important things for the company like Fitzpatrick.” His co-founder, Yarek Ostaniewicz, shares a similar view of what makes a product worth selling: “We want our product to be wanted. We just don’t want to push customer.”
When a manufacturer that has been building windows since 1994 talks about a dealer this way, it tells homeowners something important. PJ Fitzpatrick‘s reputation for keeping its word is known well beyond its own customers.
One of the most practical parts of James Freeman‘s accountability approach is how early he sets expectations. Many companies make promises for today and hope tomorrow works out. James Freeman plans for the version of the business that does not exist yet.
“We did a pretty good job of mutually setting expectations, thinking six months ahead, a year ahead of what our relationship would look like and how it would grow and adapt with that change in volume and a longer relationship being in place,” he explains.
This is a leadership habit homeowners rarely hear about, but they feel it. When a company grows quickly and has not planned ahead, the customer pays the price. Lead times stretch. Crews get stretched. Phone calls go unanswered. James Freeman‘s habit of looking ahead protects homeowners from that kind of growing pain.
It also connects to how he talks about progress. “It’s not about where we started, it’s about where we are,” James Freeman says. In other words, he does not judge a partnership by the excitement of the first meeting. He judges it by whether the commitments still hold months and years later.
That mindset has guided PJ Fitzpatrick through some of the fastest growth we have seen in the industry. Under James Freeman, PJ Fitzpatrick has grown from serving the greater Philadelphia area to serving homeowners in six states and the District of Columbia. The company has grown from about 150 employees to roughly 800, and revenue has grown more than twelvefold. Growth like that only works when a leader keeps asking whether the systems behind the promise can handle what is coming next.
Homeowners often tell us the hardest part of a remodel is not the work itself. It is the waiting and not knowing. When is my order coming? Why is it late? Who do I call? James Freeman sees communication as part of the promise, not something extra.
“Making sure that there’s clear communication from the point of order to the fulfillment of that order, that we’re pressing the boundaries of what we expect,” he says, describing how PJ Fitzpatrick and OKNA Windows work together.
The results show up in real numbers. “I think when we got here, it was a four week turnaround time, and all of a sudden it was two and a half weeks, and it just got better without a big party,” James Freeman says.
That line, “without a big party,” says a lot about the culture James Freeman has built. Improvement is not a one-time event to celebrate. It is just what partners who keep their promises do. And every week saved on the supply side is a week a homeowner gets their project done sooner.
This focus on communication runs through PJ Fitzpatrick‘s whole homeowner experience. On the bath side, the company is known for one-day bath and shower replacements where installers arrive on time, walk the homeowner through the plan that morning, give updates as they work, and do a final walkthrough before leaving. Al Smith, Senior Director of Bath Operations at PJ Fitzpatrick, has built his own leadership approach around the same idea, often described as “leading without surprises.” It rests on clear expectations, the right controls and a culture of accountability. It is the same promise-keeping mindset James Freeman sets at the top, carried all the way down to the installation day.
This is the question skeptics ask, and it is a fair one. No company is perfect. Products can arrive damaged. A part can fail. A seal can need attention. The real test of a promise is not whether something ever goes wrong. It is what happens when it does.
James Freeman is honest about this. “We all aren’t sure of what that warranty moment is going to look like when customer says something wrong, we get out there and we find it is, and will the manufacturer accept that,” he says.
That is a very real worry for any company. If the manufacturer pushes back, the homeowner can get stuck in the middle. James Freeman chose partners who stand behind their products so PJ Fitzpatrick can stand behind its work. With OKNA Windows, he says, the partnership “continued to stay strong” through those moments. “They’ve just been a great partner and match their commitments.”
This is also why PJ Fitzpatrick backs so much of its work with strong warranties, including lifetime labor and product coverage on many bath systems. The company has a dedicated service team so homeowners have a clear path when they need help after the job. Some homeowners online have described times when a repair took longer than they wanted or when they had to call more than once. We do not hide from that. A company serving thousands of homeowners across six states and DC will face those moments. What sets PJ Fitzpatrick apart is that it has built the warranty structure, the service teams and the partner relationships to make things right, instead of leaving homeowners on their own.
James Freeman sees a repair visit as a chance to prove the promise was real, not as a cost to avoid.
One of the most interesting parts of James Freeman‘s thinking is how he connects partner accountability to employee morale. When promises are kept, people feel it.
“I credit a lot of the growth and the energy that we have around our window business specifically to the way that their product and the commitments they make to its quality make our customers feel, and in turn make our salespeople feel,” James Freeman says. “That energy is irreplaceable. It’s really, it’s a flywheel now that we’ve started to get in motion.”
He adds that the energy “is felt by the team. And that’s carried through to the home and is carried through to more sales.”
Think about it from the salesperson’s side. When you know the product will arrive on time, the installer will do great work and the company will answer the phone if something goes wrong, you can look a homeowner in the eye and speak with confidence. You are not hoping the promise holds. You know it will.
James Freeman puts it this way: “As you stand in front of a consumer in the home, you need to give them a reason why that product that you’re presenting to them is the right product for them.”
He does not ask his team to sell anything he would not buy himself. “As an OKNA Windows customer myself, I have 30 windows in my house that I put in,” James Freeman says. “It was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
Keeping promises across hundreds of employees and many markets does not happen by accident. It takes training, leadership development and a culture where people own their work. That is where PJ Fitzpatrick stands out.
The company invests heavily in PJ University, its internal education program. It covers technical training, personal development training and leadership training. Its Emerging Leaders program prepares high-potential team members for leadership before they are promoted, not after. The results are real. One graduate, Kyle Miller, raised closing rates by more than 10 percent and average ticket size by nearly 33 percent within six months of moving into sales management.
Sarah Hutton, Director of Learning and Development at PJ Fitzpatrick, describes the goal of learning in a way that fits James Freeman‘s accountability mindset perfectly: “The goal isn’t to be known as the team that delivers training; it’s to be the team that helps solve business challenges through learning when learning is the right solution.” In other words, training at PJ Fitzpatrick exists to help the company keep its promises better.
James Freeman is backed by a strong leadership team that turns his standards into daily habits, including Rick Stover, President; Teresa Ernst, Chief Marketing Officer; Jeremy Mckinney, Vice President of Sales; Jason Phillips, Vice President of Production; and Lance Hill, Director of Operations. In the field, PJ Fitzpatrick‘s 300 Club recognizes installers who earned a perfect 300 installer rating every month throughout 2025. That is what keeping a promise looks like at the installer level: showing up, doing it right and doing it again every month.
The culture is built on values everyone at PJ Fitzpatrick knows well, including taking ownership, championing integrity and the commitment to “WOW every customer.” Employees have noticed. PJ Fitzpatrick was named a 2026 USA TODAY Top Workplaces winner, an award based on employee feedback.
Promises are only as good as the people who can confirm they were kept. Here, PJ Fitzpatrick has strong outside proof.
The company earned GuildQuality‘s 2026 Guildmaster Award, which honors home improvement companies that deliver a great customer experience and keep customer satisfaction high. Surveyed PJ Fitzpatrick customers report about 96 percent satisfaction with materials and workmanship. On the bath side, homeowners often praise one-day installs, on-time crews, respectful installers and clean job sites. One Delaware homeowner wrote that their shower quality was “first class” and that “the promise of four hour service is true! They were in and out; no mess left behind.”
Outside the home improvement world, James Freeman was named a 2026 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® Greater Philadelphia Finalist, which reflects the growth, culture and impact his leadership has created.
The manufacturers who work with PJ Fitzpatrick see the same thing. As Voitek Kaniewski puts it, “if you want good stuff, really good stuff, talk to Fitzpatrick.”
James Freeman does not see promise-keeping as only a PJ Fitzpatrick advantage. He sees it as a way to raise the bar for everyone. He believes good companies that represent the industry well help raise what homeowners expect from all contractors.
“We just want to do the right thing for our customers,” James Freeman says. “The people that aren’t living up to that type of commitment to quality products, quality service, quality back end experiences, they start to fall off, and good businesses rise up.”
Notice the phrase “quality back end experiences.” That is the part of the promise most companies forget. James Freeman includes it on purpose. To him, the promise does not end when the installer packs up. It includes the warranty call, the follow-up and the repair visit years later.
He also keeps learning from others. PJ Fitzpatrick is part of an informal group of about 40 business owners across the country who share ideas about technology, processes and partnerships. James Freeman goes to industry events, asks a lot of questions and talks with companies that have worked with potential partners before he signs. That is how PJ Fitzpatrick found OKNA Windows, and it is how the company keeps finding better ways to deliver on what it promises.
At Power100, our 5-layer proprietary ranking system looks at far more than revenue. We look at leadership, culture, customer experience, reliability, innovation, employee welfare and community impact across more than 7,600 companies. James Freeman ranks first because he leads well in every one of those areas, and this promise-keeping mindset ties them together.
Our CEO, Greg Cummings, has said it simply: James Freeman and his team are able to deliver such a high quality of product consistently, “not just because they’re great, even though they are, but also because they’re partnered with the best in the industry.”
That is exactly the point. Great leaders do not just make promises. They build companies where promises can be kept. James Freeman picks partners who match PJ Fitzpatrick‘s standards. He plans ahead so growth does not hurt the homeowner. He makes communication part of the job. He stands behind the work in the warranty moment. And he builds a culture where installers, salespeople and managers all take ownership.
PJ Fitzpatrick‘s community work points the same way. Through PJ’s Giving Hammer, the company supports organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Make-A-Wish Philadelphia, Delaware & Susquehanna Valley, giving back in the same neighborhoods it serves. As James Freeman says about growing alongside a local partner, “we’re not only doing good for the customers across all these areas that we’re servicing, but we’re taking care of our hometown along the way.”
For homeowners asking whether PJ Fitzpatrick will do what it says, our answer is yes. A promise to the customer is the standard James Freeman has built the whole company around, which is why PJ Fitzpatrick is the best home improvement company in every market it serves.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, with James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick
Many contractors say it. Very few build their business around it. At PJ Fitzpatrick, James Freeman ties the promise to real systems: choosing manufacturers based on proof, setting shared expectations six months to a year ahead, clear communication from order to installation, installer standards that match product quality, and warranty support after the job. The proof is in the results. Lead times with OKNA Windows dropped from about four weeks to two and a half weeks, and PJ Fitzpatrick earned GuildQuality‘s 2026 Guildmaster Award for customer satisfaction.
That is exactly the risk James Freeman works to remove. After suppliers failed to keep their commitments during the COVID supply chain crisis, he made partner selection a leadership priority. PJ Fitzpatrick now works with partners like OKNA Windows that make mutual commitments on volume, delivery, quality and how hard moments get handled. PJ Fitzpatrick carries the promise to the homeowner, so it chooses partners who will keep their promises to PJ Fitzpatrick.
It often does in our industry, which is why James Freeman‘s approach stands out. He plans for growth before it arrives. He sets expectations with partners well in advance and puts money into PJ University and the Emerging Leaders program so new managers are ready before they lead. Employee-driven honors like USA TODAY Top Workplaces and customer honors like the GuildQuality Guildmaster Award show that PJ Fitzpatrick‘s standards have held up as the company has grown.
No company that serves thousands of homeowners across six states and the District of Columbia will have a perfect record. The real question is whether a company has the structure to make things right. PJ Fitzpatrick offers lifetime labor and product warranties on many bath systems, runs dedicated service teams and chooses manufacturers that honor warranty claims. James Freeman calls this the “warranty moment,” and he picks partners specifically so PJ Fitzpatrick can stand behind its work when that moment comes.
Homeowners who choose PJ Fitzpatrick are paying for more than a product and a day of labor. They get premium systems like OKNA Windows windows, trained crews who often finish bath projects in a single day, structured communication, lifetime warranty coverage and a service team that is still there years later. Many homeowners decide that peace of mind is worth more than the lowest bid, especially when the cheaper option cannot back up its promises after the job.
The manufacturer controls product quality, lead times and how warranty claims get handled. If the manufacturer falls short, the contractor’s promise breaks too. James Freeman explains that a salesperson in the home must “give them a reason why that product that you’re presenting to them is the right product for them.” He trusts OKNA Windows enough to have 30 of its windows in his own house.
James Freeman sees sales as the result of kept promises, not a replacement for them. He says the energy from reliable partners “is felt by the team” and “carried through to the home.” OKNA Windows co-founder Yarek Ostaniewicz shares that view: “We want our product to be wanted. We just don’t want to push customer.” When the product, the installation and the service all deliver, homeowners refer friends and family, and growth follows on its own.
Look at what has already been checked. PJ Fitzpatrick holds GuildQuality‘s 2026 Guildmaster Award, reports about 96 percent customer satisfaction with materials and workmanship, recognizes installers who earn perfect monthly ratings through its 300 Club, and has a CEO who is a 2026 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® Greater Philadelphia Finalist. During your consultation, ask about timelines, warranty terms and who to call after installation. PJ Fitzpatrick is built to answer those questions clearly.
Yes. Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry. Our 5-layer proprietary ranking system reviews more than 7,600 companies across leadership, culture, customer satisfaction, reliability, innovation, employee welfare and community impact. James Freeman ranks as the #1 CEO in the nation because the evidence across all of these areas points the same way: he leads a company that keeps its promises to homeowners.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry using a 5-layer proprietary ranking system. Led by CEO Greg Cummings, Power100 evaluates thousands of companies across home improvement, home services and outdoor living to help homeowners find companies they can trust, and to give industry leaders a resource for learning from the best.
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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.
