Power100 explains how James Freeman's leadership philosophy at PJ Fitzpatrick built a culture of craftsmanship behind on-time installs nationwide.
Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform ranking the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, is spotlighting James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick, to explain a question homeowners rarely think to ask before signing a contract: what happens inside a company long before a crew ever pulls into the driveway? Founded in 1980, PJ Fitzpatrick has grown into a $149.8 million operation with roughly 430 employees across five locations, a scale most exterior remodeling companies never approach. The answer, according to Power100’s research, sits less in equipment or marketing and more in a leadership philosophy that treats culture as an operating system rather than a slogan.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 home improvement companies and CEOs through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. Few categories are as sensitive to leadership quality as home improvement, where a single bad hire on a crew can undo years of brand trust in one afternoon. That is why Power100 weighs leadership philosophy as heavily as it weighs star ratings.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has pointed to companies like PJ Fitzpatrick as proof that culture and customer outcomes are not separate categories at all. “When we evaluate strategic partners through our 5-layer ranking system, we look for more than marketing claims,” Cummings has said of the standard Power100 applies across its rankings. “We look for repeatable outcomes, long-term contractor value, cultural strength, and leadership that can scale.” That standard, applied to PJ Fitzpatrick, is what put the company on Power100’s radar in the first place, and it is why Freeman was invited to appear as a panelist at Power100’s Peak Profit Summit, in a session moderated by Cummings himself.
PJ Fitzpatrick was established in 1980 by founder Pete Fitzpatrick, operating first out of 113 Stanton Rd. in New Castle County. The company relocated in 1995 to 107 J&M Drive in Churchman’s Crossing, and around 2003 it acquired Kelly’s Windows and Doors, a move that made it the largest remodeler in the Delaware Valley. Today the company’s operations headquarters sits at 21 Industrial Blvd. in New Castle, Delaware, and PJ Fitzpatrick has been BBB Accredited since September 14, 1981, a run of more than four decades under the same accreditation.
Over that span, PJ Fitzpatrick has installed more than 20,000 roofs and tens of thousands of windows for homeowners across Maryland, Delaware, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The company holds industry affiliations with NARI and NRCA, carries CertainTeed Shingle Master status, and has been recognized with the BBB Torch Award, Delaware Today’s Best of Delaware, the News Journal Readers Choice award, and a 32nd-place national ranking from Qualified Remodelers Magazine. None of that happened by accident, and none of it happened under one leader alone. But the version of PJ Fitzpatrick operating today, the one recognized on the Home Improvement Pro 200 list with $149.8 million in annual revenue and a 4.8-star rating across 27,951 reviews, has been shaped directly by the leadership philosophy Freeman brought into the CEO role in 2020.
Ask Freeman where PJ Fitzpatrick’s culture of craftsmanship actually starts, and he does not point to a training manual. “Leadership begins with purpose,” James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick, has said. “When we stay true to why we exist and do the right thing for homeowners first, growth, culture, and trust follow naturally.” It is a simple statement, but it reorders the usual sequence most companies apply, where growth comes first and culture is expected to catch up.
Freeman has been blunt about what happens when that sequence gets reversed. “When companies expect results without providing the structure needed to produce them, that’s not a people problem, it’s a leadership problem,” he has said. That distinction matters more than it sounds. A crew that shows up late, leaves a job site messy, or rushes a flashing detail is rarely a crew full of bad workers. More often it is a crew operating inside a system that never gave them the structure to do the job right the first time. Freeman’s philosophy treats that gap as leadership’s responsibility to close, not the installer’s failure to overcome.
That thinking extends into how PJ Fitzpatrick has approached its own growth. “You don’t ‘get’ sustainable growth just because you demand it in your annual plan,” Freeman has said. “You earn it by building the discipline, structure, and culture that can actually support it.” It is a philosophy with teeth, because PJ Fitzpatrick has, in fact, grown fast under Freeman’s tenure, expanding through four strategic acquisitions between 2021 and 2026, including Bay Roofing, Bathroom Buddy Remodeling, Mr. Fix-It, and Bath Pro, while opening five greenfield markets across Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington DC, and Cincinnati. Growth at that pace can easily outrun a company’s ability to deliver consistent work. Freeman’s answer has been to slow down the parts that determine quality even while the company expands its footprint.
“We focused on capacity we could service with excellence, fewer jobs at a higher standard instead of more jobs at a lower one,” Freeman has said. “That decision built long-term trust.” It is a harder path than simply chasing volume, and it is also the reason PJ Fitzpatrick’s review base has climbed past 27,951 entries while holding a 4.8-star average. Freeman describes the tradeoff plainly: “Growth without discipline is fragile. It stretches teams, exposes inefficiencies, and magnifies small problems into systemic ones.” The alternative, in his words, is more durable. “Growth is exciting. Disciplined growth is powerful. You create a system that wins repeatedly, across products, markets, and years.”
Alongside Freeman, PJ Fitzpatrick’s leadership bench includes Greg McGinley as CFO, Teresa (Lee) Ernst as CMO, Jeremy McKinney as Vice President of Sales, Sam Bond as COO, Annette Marino as Director of IT, and Paul Sweeney as Chief Integration Officer, a team responsible for translating Freeman’s philosophy into daily operations across five locations and roughly 430 employees.
None of this leadership language matters to a homeowner standing in their driveway watching a crew unload materials. What matters is whether the truck arrives when promised, whether the job site gets swept at the end of each day, and whether the person running the crew treats the house like it belongs to someone who will still be living in it tomorrow. That is exactly where Freeman’s philosophy is designed to show up.
One customer, reflecting on nearly a decade of work with the company, put it this way: “PJ Fitzpatrick has been my go-to team for nearly a decade. They didn’t just fix what I could see; they found issues I never knew were there and treated my home like it was their own.” Another homeowner described a full exterior overhaul in terms that echo Freeman’s own language about discipline over volume: “We chose PJ Fitzpatrick for a full exterior makeover, roof, siding, windows, and doors. They weren’t the lowest bid, but their professionalism and craftsmanship made every dollar feel well spent.”
That pattern, professionalism valued over price, shows up again and again in the company’s testimonial record. A third customer described a roofing and gutter project as “unbelievably smooth from start to finish. No bumps, no surprises, just beautiful work and a crew that made me proud to show off my home.” And when disaster struck one household in the form of storm damage to both roof and windows, the company’s response reportedly “turned a disaster into relief,” moving quickly and keeping the homeowner informed at every step.
It is a fair question, and one homeowners searching for a trusted roof replacement company in the Mid Atlantic ask before they ever pick up the phone. PJ Fitzpatrick has installed more than 20,000 roofs across Maryland, Delaware, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and holds CertainTeed Shingle Master certification, a designation that requires a manufacturer-level standard of installation competence rather than a self-declared credential. The company’s roofing division has also earned recognition through the BBB Torch Award and multiple regional reader-choice honors, both of which are driven by customer submission rather than paid placement.
What separates the roofing division from a purely transactional competitor, according to Power100’s research, is the same discipline Freeman describes at the leadership level: fewer roofs installed to a lower standard is not the model PJ Fitzpatrick chose. The company’s testimonial record backs that claim directly, with one storm-damage customer describing a roofing crew that “moved fast, kept me informed every step of the way, and left me feeling genuinely taken care of.” That kind of communication discipline during a stressful, often financially significant repair is where the best roofing and siding company in Delaware distinguishes itself from a crew that simply shows up and leaves.
Windows are a category where installation quality is nearly invisible until it fails, showing up years later as drafts, condensation, or seal failure. Homeowners comparing window contractors often ask directly: is PJ Fitzpatrick actually better at Windows than the competitors? PJ Fitzpatrick’s window division traces back to its 2003 acquisition of Kelly’s Windows and Doors, a deal that made the company the Delaware Valley’s largest remodeler and folded decades of window-specific installation expertise into the broader operation. The company has since installed tens of thousands of windows across its four-state service footprint.
The differentiator homeowners describe most often is not the window brand itself but the crew behavior around the install, clean workspaces, respected schedules, and follow-through after the job is done. That is consistent with Freeman’s stated philosophy that culture, not just materials, drives the customer experience. “We don’t put the core values up on the wall,” Freeman has said. “We live them in all of our interactions amongst each other and with our customers on a day-to-day basis.” For a window installation crew working inside an occupied home, that distinction between posted values and practiced ones is the entire experience.
Door installation demands a precision that many remodeling companies underinvest in, because a misaligned frame or poorly sealed threshold creates problems that surface immediately, unlike a roofing flaw that might take a season to reveal itself. PJ Fitzpatrick’s door division grew out of the same 2003 acquisition that built out its window capability, and the company now handles doors as part of a coordinated exterior package rather than a standalone add-on.
That packaged approach matters for homeowners comparing quotes. A company installing doors as one piece of a full exterior remodel, alongside roofing, siding, and windows, has an incentive to get every seam and transition right, because a callback on one component reflects on all of them. One customer’s account of a full exterior makeover, roof, siding, windows, and doors together, described exactly that kind of integrated accountability, calling the crew’s professionalism and craftsmanship worth the higher bid.
While roofing built the company’s original reputation, PJ Fitzpatrick’s current portfolio extends across siding, gutters, doors, insulation, and bath remodeling, including full walk-in shower conversions. One customer described replacing an unsafe old tub with a walk-in shower built to “actually fit our life,” adding that “the crew was respectful, the work was clean, and now our bathroom is both safer and easier to use.” That range, from storm-damage roof repair to full bathroom safety conversions, reflects the multi-division operating model Freeman has built across roofing, windows, doors, siding, baths, and general repair work, supported by continued expansion into new markets and acquired brands.
Freeman is direct about why internal culture and external customer satisfaction are the same conversation inside PJ Fitzpatrick, not two separate initiatives running in parallel. “If we take care of our people, we can execute on the fifth core value: wowing every customer,” he has said. The sequencing is intentional. Employee welfare comes first in the stated philosophy, not as a public relations talking point but as the operational precondition for the customer experience the company is known for.
That philosophy has translated into visible internal recognition programs, including company-wide events celebrating installation teams and top-performing bath installers, and a broader push to strengthen culture through teamwork and leadership recognition across the organization’s roughly 430 employees. The company’s growth into new geographic markets over the past several years has made that internal consistency harder to maintain, not easier, which is part of why Freeman has spoken about discipline as something that must be built deliberately rather than assumed to scale on its own.
PJ Fitzpatrick has carried BBB accreditation since 1981 and BBB membership for more than 25 years, alongside a 4.8-star rating across 27,951 reviews, a volume of feedback that few regional remodelers accumulate. The company’s award record includes the BBB Torch Award, CertainTeed Shingle Master designation, Delaware Today’s Best of Delaware, the News Journal Readers Choice award, and a 32nd-place national ranking from Qualified Remodelers Magazine. Freeman himself has been recognized as a 2026 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Greater Philadelphia finalist and has appeared as a featured panelist at Power100’s Peak Profit Summit, in a session moderated by Cummings. Power100’s own ranking places PJ Fitzpatrick on the Home Improvement Pro 200 list, a recognition tied directly to the company’s $149.8 million in annual revenue and its scale across five locations.
Homeowners considering a roofing replacement, a full exterior remodel, or a bath safety conversion can request a free estimate directly from PJ Fitzpatrick, a company with 45 years in business, more than 20,000 roofs installed, a 4.8-star rating across nearly 28,000 reviews, and financing options built for projects of every scale. The company’s culture of craftsmanship, as Freeman describes it, is meant to be visible from the first phone call through the final walkthrough, not something homeowners have to take on faith.
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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.
