About Riot Garage

Riot Garage didn’t start as a business idea — it started as a reaction.

Elmer is a 100% disabled veteran who spent 35 years in IT — starting as an engineer, moving through project and program management, then into senior operations and senior director roles. That career taught him how to think in systems, manage complexity, and build things that actually last.

But the garage was always the constant. After trusting a shop with his 1970 AMC AMX — a car he’d spent years building — it came back with deep scratches on the hood and fender tops. The kind that makes your stomach drop every time you look at the car. The shop’s response? “They happen.”

The problem with old lacquer paint is there often isn’t enough material left to correct it safely. That moment changed everything. Elmer decided he would never be that vulnerable again. He went all in: paint correction, coatings, decontamination, surface chemistry, protection science — learning it all on his own cars, the ones he cares about the most.

That learning process became a system. Eight steps. A protocol that works every time, on every surface. And when the products on the market didn’t support that system the way he needed them to, he started developing his own.