UFP Industries history

That year, company vice-president Peter F. Secchia, who had joined Universal upon graduation from Michigan State University in 1962, purchased a controlling share of the company.

Toward that end, in 1970, the company purchased the assets of a component yard in Georgia; the following year, the company acquired a second component yard, in Pennsylvania.

In 1971, Universal reported sales of $12 million.

After the success of the first two component plants, others were opened in Florida and North Carolina, and Universal made its first direct business acquisition, Lumber Specialties of Granger, Indiana, in 1973.

In 1977, meantime, Secchia merged his private restaurant holdings into Universal Companies.

1978: Company first enters the treated lumber sector, producing pressure-treated wood at a plant in Auburndale, Florida.

He had also been active in Republican politics in the Midwest, acting as vice-chairman of the Republican National Committee for the 13 states of the Midwest and campaigning for George Bush during the 1988 elections.

In 1989, President George Bush appointed Universal board Chairman and CEO Peter Secchia as United States Ambassador to Italy.

With $90 million in sales in 1991, Chesapeake Wood Treating Co. accounted for approximately 10 percent of Chesapeake Corp.'s consolidated net sales.

In May 1993, an inevitable dip in lumber prices occurred.

With 28 manufacturing, treating, and distribution plants in the United States and Canada, Universal ranked among Fortune magazine’s list of 500 top grossing American companies in 1994, for the first time in its 49-year history.

By 1996 revenues reached $867.7 million, and then sales topped the $1 billion mark the following year.

Shoffner, based in Burlington, North Carolina, operated 14 truss factories in seven states in the Southeast and had 1997 sales of $90.2 million.

Two packaging firms were bought during the first half of 1998: Industrial Lumber Company, Inc. of Newark, California, a distributor of low-grade cut lumber for packaging; and Atlantic General Packaging, Inc. of Warrenton, North Carolina, a producer of specialty wood packaging products.

During 1999 Universal and its subsidiaries concentrated more on organic growth than acquisitions.

There was also one major acquisition in 2000, the $29.4 million purchase of Gang-Nail Components, Inc., a producer of engineered roof trusses for site-built housing headquartered in Fontana, California--marking Universal's entrance into the southern California market.

During early 2001 the company acquired D&R Framing Contractors, which was based in Englewood, Colorado, and provided framing services to Colorado home builders.

By 2002 revenues at Universal Forest Products had reached $1.64 billion--an impressive figure though far short of the goal of $2 billion set five years earlier.