OUR STORY.

Renovate Upstate was started by 27 year old Tommy Gerlach Jr. in May 1995 under the name Advanced Roofing Services. Tommy lived near, & went to grade school with a family in the roofing business and started working for them during the summer months beginning in 8th grade (1982). Days after high school graduation in 1986, Tommy started roofing garages as a subcontractor for Lifetime Builders, a company that his grandfather Ivan Willoughby, worked at for many decades until his passing in 1977. Tommy started working out of a old rusty Ford station wagon with a box of nails and a wooden ladder. Within a year, he graduated to a rusty Ford truck with a homemade ladder rack, air compressor with air guns and hired his first employee. The first few winters were hard, but in the spring of 1988, he ran into his old employer who gave him a job offer he couldn't refuse... Tommy jumped at the opportunity to grow and lead others with a highly respected and established business, figuring there was much more he needed to learn! Tommy stayed with that company until 1995, during that time having gotten married in 1991, having a daughter in 1993, owning 2 houses later... It was then in 1995 that he decided to strike it out on his own again and is still swinging away!

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 In May 1995, with a little purple Ford Ranger single cab, Tommy started Advanced Roofing Services with a friend from his church softball team who was just graduating high school. With the world wide web coming into our homes, Advanced Roofing Services (Now with 2 employees) had one of the first websites for a remodeling business in the state of Wisconsin in 1997. By 2001, Advanced Roofing Services  had 10 full time employees, 5 trucks, a 2000 square foot shop and was doing close to 1 million dollars a year in servicing the metro Milwaukee area.  A major part of Tommy's business was servicing local builders as their roofing installer, with the rest servicing the full exterior of existing homes in neighborhoods all across metro Milwaukee. As the customer list has grown for years, the same customers that we serviced their exteriors, started to ask us to come back and tackle interior projects on their homes... that, led to the businesses new name, spring of 2006, Confidence Builders!

 

In the years following, Confidence Builders with, 'whole house' building/renovation' in mind, would successfully complete all state builders training, licensing requirements & certifications, qualifying them to build multi family dwellings state wide.  The next decade they successfully completed  1,400+ sq ft house additions including sun rooms, garages, major kitchen & bath overhauls, rec-room additions and so, so much more! Confidence Builders has always maintained a 'A+' business rating with the BBB, Angie's List and now with Facebook, a perfect 5 star rating!

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Today, after more than 25 years, Confidence Builders changed it's name to Renovate Upstate and is a full service remodeling/building contractor now located in the state of South Carolina,  providing the same great service to Greenville and metro Upstate! Take the time to look through some of our projects posted in our gallery page, I cant wait to meet with you, go over the ideas you have for your project, and see it through to satisfactory completion! 

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 Tommy Gerlach Jr.