Aug 18 2009
Atlas Holdings LLC, in partnership with a group of former leaders of Trus Joist Corporation, has acquired Weyerhaeuser Company's former Trus Joist Commercial business. They will locate the company's headquarters in Boise, Idaho, where Trus Joist Corporation was founded nearly 50 years ago and emerged as a world leader in engineered wood products.
The acquired business will be renamed RedBuilt, and the firm will again be led by several former members of Trus Joist's management team who serve on RedBuilt's new board of directors and oversee day-to-day operations of the company.
RedBuilt will continue to operate commercial manufacturing plants in Chino, Calif., Hillsboro and Stayton, Ore., and Delaware, Ohio, as well as 13 design and sales offices located across the United States. The company employs 234 people throughout the country. Terms of the transaction, which concluded Aug. 14, were not disclosed.
Formerly owned by Weyerhaeuser, the commercial division of Trus Joist, now RedBuilt, has been recognized as a world leader in developing wood-based open-web structural solutions since 1960. It offers the industry's most innovative engineered wood products and building systems for commercial, industrial, and multifamily applications. RedBuilt's offerings include composite wood-and-steel open-web trusses, engineered wood I-joists, engineered lumber like LVL (laminated veneer lumber), and complementary components, product engineering, and onsite technical support, as well as a range of concrete-shoring and scaffold-planking solutions.
The Atlas Holdings acquisition marks the return of an experienced management team, including distinguished industry veterans who are credited with Trus Joist Corporation's meteoric rise in the 1980s and 1990s:
- Former Trus Joist Corporation CEO Tom Denig, who ran the company for more than two decades, serves as RedBuilt's chairman of the board.
- Former Trus Joist Corporation general manager and operations vice president Bill Walters serves as vice chairman.
- Kurt Liebich, who oversaw commercial and industrial operations at Trus Joist for Weyerhaeuser before succeeding Denig as the division's chief executive, is president and CEO of RedBuilt, as well as a member of its board of directors.
"We're starting RedBuilt in a time of unprecedented market challenges because we have enormous confidence based on experience in industry-leading products, talented people, and the innovative culture of this business," Liebich said. "Often the greatest opportunities are born in times of great turmoil. Backed with the strength of Atlas Holdings, the team at RedBuilt is poised to take our business to a bold, new level and in the process resurrect the can-do culture and spirit of innovation."
Atlas executives share Liebich's enthusiasm.
"We are excited about the acquisition and look forward to growing RedBuilt over the long term," Atlas Holdings Chairman Andrew Bursky said. "We're impressed with the tradition of excellence the company has built and we're excited to own this dynamic leader in the commercial building-solutions sector. We're committed to investing in the future of the business so RedBuilt can continue to provide the exceptional customer service and innovative solutions its clients have depended on for decades."
According to Liebich and Bursky, the company's innovation-oriented, entrepreneurial culture and experienced, versatile staff will prove invaluable in continuing to meet the needs of diverse customers in many states. They said the business is based on making technical sales of products to architects, engineers, and builders and complying with stringent and complex code requirements that vary from state to state. "This is a highly specialized business," Liebich explained, "but it fits perfectly in Atlas' international portfolio of businesses, many of which are divisions of larger companies that Atlas purchased and then helped grow into strong, successful, independent entities."
Liebich said RedBuilt, the company's new name, is "a tip of the old hard hat" to Harold "Red" Thomas, the wholesale lumberman who co-founded the original Trus Joist Corporation with inventor Art Troutner in 1960. "Starting with little more than $8,000, some machinery, and an old barn, Red and Art pioneered products that revolutionized the building industry," he said. "Together with our invaluable associates and loyal customers, RedBuilt will continue to flourish for decades to come by building on the legacy and core values of innovation and industry leadership Red inspired that has made Trus Joist such a great success."