Riley Nevins.

Riley Nevins started fixing computers at 14 and never really stopped. What began as helping family members with broken laptops grew into a cybersecurity and VPN company called Veilock LLC at age 16, then a PC repair shop that grew into managed IT, and eventually BadgerLayer — a full-service IT company serving small businesses and homes across Southern Wisconsin and the Chicago metro.

The common thread across each iteration has been a belief that small business IT is usually worse than it needs to be — slow, opaque, over-priced, and built to lock customers in. Riley founded BadgerLayer around the opposite premise: local, reachable, documented, and honest about what repairs and services are actually worth.

On the technical side, Riley specializes in network infrastructure (Palo Alto firewalls, Juniper switching, UniFi) and cybersecurity for regulated verticals — law firms, dental and medical practices, insurance agencies, and local government. On the consumer side, he's handled thousands of repairs across PCs, laptops, Xbox and PlayStation consoles, and home networking.

Riley writes most of the repair cost guides on the BadgerLayer blog, drawing from day-to-day bench work rather than secondary sources. The Xbox repair cost guide is the top result worldwide for its search term.

Outside of BadgerLayer, Riley is based in Whitewater, Wisconsin and is working toward a broader Southern Wisconsin and Chicago metro presence throughout 2026.