About Rich Bennett

Tints and Tones Residential Painting, LLC is the brainchild of Evansville, IN native, Rich Bennett. He started Tints and Tones Residential Painting (TTRP) in September 2023 and secured his first job, a nursery room repaint, shortly after. Since then, Rich’s goal has been to provide painting services that he can be proud of. His desire is to constantly and consistently Wow! his customers with results with Excellence Exceeding Expectations! Tints and Tones Residential Painting currently serves the Evansville, IN and surrounding areas. Continue reading to learn more about what drives and motivates Rich in life and in business.

Early Life and Adolescence

Rich was born to a single mom in an area of Evansville, IN known as Box Town. Shortly after, they moved to another area called Jim Town, where Rich lived in various places throughout his childhood. Rich was a sick kid; he was born with a congenital disease called Hirschsprung’s disease. As a result, Rich was also a “Riley kid,” and was in and out of Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, IN over his first ten years of life.

Rich was also an ambitious and curious. He was always asking questions, much to the chagrin of others, and was never really satisfied with answers like “just because.” He grew up with interests in art and science, but his love for science eventually took over, and throughout high school and college he pursued a career in science. That path eventually led him to Cincinnati, OH where he pursued and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology…more on that later!! Before then, Rich attended Delaware Elementary School, Evans Middle School, and North High School, when it was located on the corner of Diamond Ave. and Stringtown Rd. After high school, Rich attended the University of Southern Indiana (USI) to pursue a bachelor degree in biology.

As a young man, Rich worked in a couple of different places during his adolescent years. His first job was at the age of 14 as a dishwasher at a little restaurant located on the corner of Virginia St. and Main St. called the Knotty Pine Cafe. If you’re a native of Evansville and are…ummm…experienced enough, you may remember that restaurant. That was the summer of 1989. Later that next year, he joined Donut Bank at their Diamond Ave. location where he would clean the bakery after school and on Saturdays. About year or so later, he joined Kuester’s Hardware, another Evansville, IN gem, and worked in the Lawn and Garden department. Little did he know, this is also where he would meet his wife for the first time. Although she would start at Kuester’s a few months later, he can still remember seeing her for the first walking from the old Olan Mills studio to Kuester’s to buy a drink while he was waiting in his car to go into work. More on that later too!!

Young Adulthood

During college, Rich found new possibilities. Normally a quiet, invisible, reserved kid, Rich opted to take ownership of his life and change directions and joined the Sigma Tau Gamma (ΣΤΓ) fraternity. Through a series of unfortunate events, he ended up on his own and moved into the fraternity house just a few weeks into the first semester of college. With the new found stress of trying to make ends meet and trying to maintain a full-time course schedule, things started to unravel. He had to take on more and more demanding jobs to be able to pay rent at the fraternity house, buy food, and pay for living expenses he hadn’t been used to paying for. Rich was resilient though. As a Riley Kid, he knew the virtues of not giving up, of fighting in the face of adversity, and coming out victorious on the other side. And that’s what he did.

Although he would end up victorious, the path to victory was littered with struggle. His grades slipped and he ended up actually getting dismissed from USI due to a low GPA. But a savior was on the way. During his early 20s, he worked at a number of places. After Kuester’s, and through fraternity connections, he worked as a delivery driver at the Evansville Courier & Press, another by-gone of southwestern Indiana. He also worked a few months at Rafferty’s as…not surprisingly…a dishwasher. After that, he worked as a billing clerk at Roadway Express, yet another company that is no longer around…seems like a pattern might be developing here!?!? He also had some short stints during that time with UPS and FedEx Ground…they’re still around!! In early 1997, he was promoted from billing clerk at Roadway Express to his first “big boy” job as an outbound supervisor.

A Family Blooms

By this time, school was seeming like it was going to be a loss. But remember that girl Rich saw when he was sitting in the parking lot waiting to go into work at Kuester’s Hardware a few years earlier? This is where she comes in. In September 1997, Rich was out and about and decided to drop into Kuester’s for a drink. They were still in business then and some of the people he worked with when he was at Kuester’s were still there. As he was walking out, he heard someone yell “Rich!” from the customer service desk. It was Michelle…the girl from Olan Mills. You see, as I mentioned earlier, Michelle joined Kuester’s a few months after Rich did. They worked together for a couple of years before he left to go work for the Evansville Courier & Press. They didn’t run in the same social circles - she was a Reitz girl and he went to North - and they didn’t really cross paths much at work due to being in different areas. Michelle worked primarily in the front end as a cashier and customer service cashier, while Rich was in Lawn & Garden. When Rich left in early 1994, that was it. Their paths diverged…until this late September Saturday in 1997. Rich walked back in and said “Hi” and they made small talk. Michelle suggested they get a “drink” and Rich agreed, but being the dense guy he was when it came to girls, he neither left nor got a phone number. You might think all was lost at this point. After all, these where the twilight years before the internet and social media. So, you couldn’t just Google someone. Thankfully, she and Rich had a mutual connection at this point and, through that connection, Michelle was able to get Rich’s number and give him a call. Unsurprisingly, Michelle made the first move and invited him on a date with “some other friends.” However, initially, there weren’t any “others.” That was October 4, 1997. It didn’t take long for Rich to realize he had found his person. Michelle and Rich got engaged in March 1998, and were married a little over a year later in May 1999. They celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in May 2024.

A Flame Relit!

When Rich and Michelle got engaged, Rich knew he had to change his future.

For most of his adult life, Rich wanted to own and operate a business, even if it was just a small “side gig.” Perpetually on the lookout for the perfect opportunity, life and other obligations and challenges just seemed to get in the way, and the stars just didn’t seem to align. However, after his mother passed in 2023, he found himself renovating his mother’s house to prepare it for sale. Part of renovating was painting every room. Realizing that he enjoyed the process