Garen

I'm Garen Armstrong — a father, friend, serial entrepreneur, and faithful servant to my community. I've started, grown, and exited multiple companies, and helped scale one of the fastest-growing roofing companies out of the Kansas City area as General Contractor with Shamrock Roofing & Construction. Everything I've built, I've built by investing in people — surrounding myself with talented, ambitious teams and helping each person chase their own purpose while we pursued a shared vision.

But the playbook I follow wasn't written in a boardroom. It was forged the hard way.

In 2018, a sinus infection spread to my heart. Within 45 days, my ejection fraction had dropped to 10%, and doctors implanted a HeartMate 3 LVAD to keep me alive. I was the first patient at the University of Kansas Hospital to receive it. I lived on batteries for three years, raising my three kids and leading my company, while waiting for a donor heart. There were complications, another infection, and in 2020 I landed in the ICU as COVID hit. Then the call finally came. After a successful transplant, I heard my own heartbeat again for the first time in three years.

Five years and multiple open-heart surgeries later, I'm still here, and I don't take a day of it for granted. I advocate for the American Heart Association, founded Roofs4Heroes to help struggling veterans and first responders, and stay active with Cars4Heroes and Friends of Service Heroes. I speak openly about mental health in my industry, because monetary success isn't the measure of a life.

I want to be remembered for my work ethic, my humility, and a life guided by faith.