The trade background is the product.
RaapTech isn't a software company that discovered construction. It's a tradesman who spent twenty years living the database problem — and got tired of watching shops lose bids because of it.
How Tim got here
Bench, floor, office, then this.
- The Apprenticeship
Local Union 73, Chicago
Started in the trade the way everyone should — on the bench, learning how sheet metal actually goes together. That foundation is why RaapTech databases reflect how shops really fabricate, not how software demos say they should.
- The Shop Floor
Two decades in MEP fabrication
Twenty-plus years across sheet metal fabrication and MEP project environments. CADmep®, CAMduct®, and ESTmep® learned by running real work through them — estimating jobs, building spools, shipping ductwork.
- The Office
Operations Manager, major Chicago sheet metal shop
Owned the whole picture: estimating, fabrication, delivery, and the database underneath all of it. Lived the exact problems RaapTech now fixes — pricing nobody trusts, job entry that takes forever, knowledge trapped in one person's head.
- Now
Founder, RaapTech LLC
RaapTech exists because the problem is everywhere and almost nobody fixing it has actually run a shop. Tim has. That's the whole pitch.
Shop-floor rules, applied to consulting
Say it plain
If your database is fine, you'll hear that. If it's a mess, you'll hear exactly why and what it costs. No consultant-speak, no padded findings.
Fix, don't present
Every engagement ends with something working — not a deck about what could work. You pay for a database your estimators trust.
Leave it maintainable
Documented structure, clean naming, and a team that knows what it's looking at. The goal is that you never need a rescue again.
— Tim Raap, Founder