Our story
We named the companyafter where we started.
Underdog is Jorge Marquez's company. He is a union-trained Journeyman Roofer who finished a five-year apprenticeship in three years, and he opened this business from zero in a market that already had plenty of roofers in it. What follows is the long version of why that matters to your roof.
- Founded
- 3 March 2021
- Based in
- Mishawaka, IN
- Crew
- In-house, no subs
On site
Our crew, not a subcontractor
Why ‘Underdog’
The name is not a marketing angle.
It is the position we started from.
There is no origin story here about a family name over the door for three generations. Underdog Roofing & Construction was filed with the State of Indiana on 3 March 2021, and on that day it was worth exactly what any brand-new LLC is worth: nothing. No reviews. No referral list. No reputation. Just a Journeyman Roofer with about a decade on roofs and a very specific opinion about how the work ought to be done.
Jorge Marquez had spent seven years on non-union crews and then four in the union. Somewhere in the middle of that he did the thing the trade actually notices: he took a five-year apprenticeship and finished it in three. That is not a loophole. The hours are the hours — he worked more of them, faster, than the program expected, and came out the other side a Journeyman Roofer.
What he could not do, working for other people, was control what got left behind. A roof is a system, and most of it disappears under the shingle within a day of going on. Underlayment that got skipped, flashing that got caulked instead of woven, decking that should have been cut out and was not — none of it shows from the street, and all of it turns up four winters later as a stain on somebody's ceiling. He got tired of putting his hands on work he could not stand behind.
So the name is honest arithmetic. In this market we are the smaller company. The bigger outfits have the ad budget, the branded fleet, the call centre, the commissioned closer who has never carried a bundle up a ladder. What we have is our own crew and a Journeyman who is on the roof with them. Every job we get, we get by being better on the roof than somebody who was easier to find.
Being the underdog is a working position, not a sob story. It means we cannot afford a bad job. A national outfit can absorb one unhappy customer in South Bend and never feel it — we would feel it for years. Every roof we put on either earns the next one or costs it. That is a genuinely uncomfortable way to run a business, and it is also the reason we do not cut the corner nobody would ever see.
It is also why we will tell you when you do not need a new roof. We would rather hand you photographs, tell you that you have five good years left, and be the first call you make when those five years are up.
“We make sure your vision is still part of the project while never cutting corners.”— Jorge Marquez, Owner & Journeyman Roofer
“We are ran off of passion, not profit.”
The road here
Ten years of trade,
then the paperwork.
Nobody hands you a roofing company. This is the order it happened in.
Seven years, non-union
Jorge started where most roofers start: on production crews, paid by the square, learning the trade at the speed the job demanded. He got fast. He also spent seven years watching work go out the door that he would not have wanted on his own house.
Four years, union
Going union meant learning the same trade a second time, properly — standards, safety, sequencing, and the flashing details that decide whether a roof lasts twenty years or leaks in year three. It is slower work and a harder ticket to get.
A five-year apprenticeship, finished in three
The apprenticeship is a five-year program measured in documented hours on real roofs. Nothing was waived for him — the hours are the hours. He simply banked them faster than the schedule assumed, which means he was on more roofs, for more of the year, than the people he started alongside.
Journeyman Roofer
Journeyman is the point at which the trade itself certifies that a roofer can run work without supervision and be trusted to do it to standard. It is issued by people who climbed the same ladders, not by a marketing department.
3 March 2021 — Underdog Roofing & Construction LLC
Filed in Mishawaka with a decade of trade experience behind it and nothing else in front of it. Every early job had to be won against companies that already had the reviews, the referrals and the recognisable name, which meant winning it on the roof itself.
Today
A company that does not subcontract a single roof. The crew is employed here, and it is the same crew on every job, working across St. Joseph and Elkhart counties and over the Michigan line. Still owned by the roofer whose name is on the licence.
What we stand on
Four things we will not trade away.
Every roofer says they are honest and every roofer says they do quality work. These are the specific versions we hold ourselves to, so you can hold us to them too.
Honesty first
The most valuable thing we can tell you is that you do not need us yet. If your roof has five good years left, we will say so and show you the photographs that prove it. A replacement we talked you out of is worth far more to us than one you resented paying for.
Quality craftsmanship
Roofs fail at the details — valleys, step flashing, pipe boots, ventilation — long before the shingle field gives out. We install to manufacturer specification whether or not anybody will ever climb up to check. The roof knows the difference even if the street does not.
Community roots
We live where we work. Every roof we put on in Mishawaka, South Bend or Granger is one we will drive past for the next twenty years, and every customer is somebody we are going to run into at the hardware store. That is accountability no out-of-state franchise can manufacture.
Standing behind the work
A workmanship warranty is only worth as much as the company behind it. We are licensed, insured and local, and if something we installed is not right, we come back and make it right. That is the entire reason to hire someone whose truck you can find.
The credential
What a Journeyman actually is.
Most roofing companies you could call tomorrow are owned by a salesperson, a general contractor, or an investor. Very few are owned by somebody who holds a journeyman's ticket in the trade itself, and it is worth understanding why that is difficult.
A union apprenticeship is not a certificate you buy or a test you cram for. It is a five-year program built on hours served: documented time on real roofs under the supervision of a journeyman, with classroom instruction running alongside the field work every year. You cannot read your way past it and you cannot skip the parts you find dull. The hours have to be logged, and the work has to be signed off by people whose own standing in the trade rides on the signature.
Jorge Marquez completed that five-year program in three. Nothing was waived — the hours requirement does not bend. He banked them faster than the schedule assumed, which in this trade means one thing: he was on more roofs, in more weather, for more of the year than the apprentices who started with him.
Journeyman is the point at which the trade certifies that a roofer can run work without supervision. For you as a homeowner, that is the difference between a company where somebody senior knows exactly how step flashing should terminate into counter flashing at a chimney, and a company where that knowledge lives with whichever subcontracted crew was available that week. The parts of a roof that fail are almost never the shingles. They are the details — and details are precisely what an apprenticeship exists to teach.
What the apprenticeship involves
Five years of it, done in three
- A multi-year program, not a weekend certification
- Documented on-the-job hours under a journeyman’s supervision
- Classroom instruction running alongside the field work
- Fall protection and jobsite safety training
- Steep-slope, low-slope and waterproofing systems, not just shingle
- Signed off by the trade, not by a marketing department
Ask any contractor bidding your roof who on their team is a journeyman, and what they trained on. It is a fair question, it takes ten seconds, and the answer tells you a great deal about the roof you are going to get.
The crew
Our own crew. No subcontractors.
Underdog is the people who turn up. That is the whole company — roofers on our own payroll, not salespeople with a rotating cast of subcontracted labour behind them. The crew that arrives at your house is the crew, and the man who owns the business is a working Journeyman Roofer rather than somebody with a clipboard and a commission.
Subcontracting is completely normal in this industry, and it is why so many roofing complaints sound identical. The person who sold the job is not the person who installed it. The installer's name is not on the warranty and their reputation is not at stake, so the incentive is to be quick rather than correct. When it is our own crew, the people who drove the nails are the people the phone rings for in year two.
The standard is the same on every roof because the people are the same on every roof, and most Michiana homes are torn off and dried in before the day is out — which matters more than it sounds when the forecast turns at four in the afternoon.
- The people who quote your job are the people who install it
- One crew, one standard — no rotating cast of subcontractors
- Licensed, insured and background checked
- A magnet sweep of the drive and lawn before we leave
- One phone number for the whole project, start to finish
- Drone and hands-on documentation of what we find, before and after
Where we work
Close enough to be accountable.
We work out of Mishawaka, which puts most of Michiana inside a half-hour drive. That is not a logistics detail — it is why we can get to a leak the same day, and why the roofs we install are ones we keep driving past.
2021
Locally owned since
Michiana born and based
10+
Years on roofs
Jorge’s trade experience
Free
Roof inspections
Photo report, no obligation
15+
Cities served
Indiana & Southwest Michigan
Cities with a dedicated page
We also work regularly in Lakeville, North Liberty, Walkerton, New Carlisle, Bremen, Wakarusa, Bristol and Middlebury. If you are somewhere in the wider Michiana area and are not sure whether we reach you, call and ask — we will tell you honestly if you are outside our range rather than send somebody on a two-hour round trip.
About the company
Fair questions.
The ones worth asking any contractor before you let them on your roof — answered for ours.
How long has Underdog Roofing been in business?
Underdog Roofing & Construction LLC was formed on 3 March 2021, so the company is younger than a lot of the names you will see on lawn signs around Michiana. We are deliberate about not blurring that line: the company is from 2021, and the roughly ten years of trade experience belongs to Jorge — seven years on non-union crews and four in the union before he ever filed the paperwork. If a contractor tells you they have decades in business, it is a fair question to ask whether they mean the company or the person.
Who owns the company, and will I actually meet him?
Jorge Marquez owns Underdog, and his title is not decorative — he is a union-trained Journeyman Roofer who completed a five-year apprenticeship in three years, not a salesperson who subcontracts out the labour. He does the inspections, and he works alongside the crew rather than dropping in for the signature.
Do you subcontract any of your work?
No. Our own crew does the work — the same people, on every roof. Subcontracting is normal in this industry and it is why so many roofing complaints sound alike: the person who sold the job is not the person who installed it, and neither is the person you reach in year two. When it is our crew, the warranty and the reputation belong to the same people who drove the nails.
Why hire a small local company instead of a large national one?
A national outfit can absorb one unhappy customer in South Bend without ever feeling it. We cannot, and word travels fast in a market this size, so the incentives are simply different. You also get a much shorter chain of command: no call centre, no commissioned closer, no four-hour kitchen-table pitch. You get the roofer, the photographs, an itemised number, and time to think about it.
Start with a free inspection
Let us climb up and tell you the truth.
No cost, no obligation, and no four-hour sales pitch at your kitchen table. We walk the roof, photograph what we find, and hand you the images whether or not you hire us.
Mon–Fri 7:00am–6:00pm · Sat 8:00am–2:00pm