OrePac Building Products history

OrePac Building Products is a family-owned and operated business, founded by the Hart family in 1977.

Despite such bad press, in 1979, NOR PAC achieved its peak volume of business.

After opening its first Inner-Seal mill in 1980, L-P advertised the product as 'the smart man's plywood.'

1982: Leo Gibbons succeeds Doug David as president and chief operating officer.

In 1986, the company purchased Kirby Forest Industries and the California properties of Timber Realization Company.

NOR PAC began importing radiata pine from Chile in 1989.

However, Georgia-Pacific had kept most of its low-cost timber reserves and the bulk of its tree farms for itself. Thus the newly independent L-P had to 'scramble for raw materials,' particularly timber, as the July 29, 1990 Portland Oregonian explained.

In 1991, it had purchased Saxonville USA, a leading distributor in the northeast of building materials sold to professional lumber dealers and manufacturers.

Also that year, the company settled a 1993 sexual harassment suit against Merlo.

By 1994, Saxonville had grown 74 percent to $96 million in sales, doubling its distribution centers to six and extending its territory in the Northeast.

In 1996, L-P committed at least $275 million to a settlement with 800,000 homeowners who had used the Inner-Seal siding.

Although the company again operated at a net loss of $101.8 million in 1997, executives remained optimistic.

In 1999, L-P purchased Evans Forest Products Ltd., a Canadian manufacturer of engineered wood and lumber products.

The company purchased Wasatch Technologies Inc., with which it had collaborated in 2000 on a project to develop a fiberglass wrap for wood poles, and changed the name of its newest venture to North Pacific Composites.