Times were tough for Roy Wilson LaPine growing up in Cheboygan, Michigan. When he was in sixth grade, his father was killed in a boating accident on Mackinac Island and Roy had to quit school to help support his family on the farm.  As a young adult, he moved to Kalamazoo and began working for the Kalamazoo Stove Company where he made sheet metal fittings for residential heating systems.

In 1934, Roy and his wife Viola were still struggling to get ahead financially.  They  moved to Paw Paw, Michigan and began farming as a second source of income.  Working the farm and a full time job at the factory wore on Roy.  One day a neighbor who knew Roy had experience with sheet metal asked him for help installing his new heating system.  Impressed by his workmanship and mechanical aptitude, the neighbor asked Roy if he’d ever thought about starting his own business. In 1944, with only a 6th grade education, he left the Kalamazoo Stove Company  to start his own sheet metal business: LaPine Sheet Metal.

Roy’s new company was housed in a small space inside a warehouse, which was provided free of charge by the Paw Paw Wine Company. In the beginning, the company’s only assets were an eight-foot workbench and a collection of hand tools. With business depressed by World War II, sheet metal was hard to come by, so Roy visited junkyards and dumps to locate anything that could be turned into ductwork.

In 1946, Roy hired a full-time helper and his oldest son, Lyle. With the business struggling due to a depressed economy created by World War II, Roy was second guessing his decision. The war eventually ended, and Roy never lost hope that he made the right decision though still struggling financially.  

After Lyle graduated from the University of Michigan as a mechanical engineer, he went to work for The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. But, by 1955, Lyle grew homesick and returned home to help his father and brother, Jack, grow the business. With Roy retiring in 1967, the brothers incorporated the company and renamed it R.W. LaPine in honor of their father. By 1989, Kirk, Lyle’s son, took over as President of the company and transitioned it into its third generation.

In 2020, Kirk’s eldest son Ryan assumed responsibility as President becoming the fourth generation of the LaPine family to head the business .   Ryan is a 2009 Western Michigan University School of Business graduate and a journeyman with Local 357 Plumbers & Pipefitters. 

“2024 is our 80th year in business and still serving our customers according to the standard Roy Wilson LaPine set when he founded the firm: ‘Quality through experience, excellence by commitment.”