APA—The Engineered Wood Association, the nonprofit trade association of the North American structural engineered wood products industry, turns 75 this year. 

February 8, 2008 - Tacoma, WA.  The Association was organized in Portland, Oregon on May 16, 1933 as the Douglas Fir Plywood Association (DFPA) and held its first meeting a month later in Tacoma, Washington, where it has been headquartered ever since.

Getting going wasn’t easy, however.  “I recall 1933, when the Douglas Fir Plywood Association took its first halting steps, as a daunting time for all but the most incurable optimists,” remembered plywood industry pioneer and one-time DFPA President Norman Cruver 50 years later when the Association celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1983.  “In an era of global unemployment, hunger and bankrupt businesses, plywood manufacturers had to be optimistic to invest in something for the future, but that could not immediately influence markets still in the grip of depression,” Cruver recalled. 

A major potential boost to the fortunes of the Association’s members occurred in 1934 when Dr. James Nevin, a chemist at Harbor Plywood Corporation in Aberdeen, Washington, developed the first fully waterproof adhesive.  That promised a much improved product suitable for more demanding applications.  But the industry still faced major obstacles.  Product quality and grading systems varied widely from mill to mill.  Individual companies lacked the technical resources to research and develop new uses.  And new customers had to be made aware of the product and convinced of its benefits.  All in the midst of the Great Depression. 

The struggling organization limped along until 1937, when a handful of industry leaders sequestered themselves on the Washington coast to hammer out a new and more effective charter.  Cruver, who was there as a member of the DFPA Management Committee, remembered that “for almost a week in early November 1937 we debated the objectives and structure of an organization that needed a clearer mandate if it was to succeed.” 

The new charter fashioned at that meeting made market development and the advancement of industrywide product quality standards top priorities—APA mandates that continue to this day.  Before long, technical services, including and especially engineering expertise, were added to what became and remains the Association’s mission—To work in partnership with members to develop and maintain markets through excellence in APA trademarked product promotion, quality assurance, and technical and educational support. 

With the coming of World War II and the end of the Depression, the plywood industry began to grow dramatically.  The war was a proving ground for the product.  Plywood barracks went up around the country.  The Navy patrolled the Pacific in plywood PT boats.  The Air Force flew reconnaissance missions in plywood gliders.  And the Army crossed the Rhine River in plywood assault vessels.  When the war ended, the industry geared up to meet the demand for construction grade plywood created by the booming post-war economy.  The industry that in 1934 boasted 17 mills and produced 400 million square feet (3/8” basis) of plywood had by 1954 grown to 101 mills producing almost 4 billion square feet. 

Ten years later, with development of new technology facilitating the manufacture of Southern pine plywood, the first of numerous Southern pine plywood mills opened in Fordyce, Arkansas.  Before long, the South was as important a plywood-producing region as the Pacific Northwest. 

Having outgrown its name, the Douglas Fir Plywood Association became American Plywood Association (APA) in 1964.  And then in 1969, to keep pace with its members’ growing need for technical support, APA dedicated a new 37,000-square-foot Tacoma research center, still one of the most sophisticated applied research laboratories in the world. 

Demand for plywood continued to grow as the list of uses continued to expand—subflooring, wall sheathing, roof sheathing, exterior siding, soffits, stair treads and risers, concrete forming, upholstered furniture frames, crates, bins, boxes, shipping containers, truck trailer linings, pallets, cabinets, boats, recreational vehicles, signage, highway noise barriers, shelving, agricultural buildings, do-it-yourself home projects, and on and on. 

Another milestone occurred in the late 1970s when the Association promulgated new performance standards that opened the marketplace door to an innovative new type of structural wood panel—oriented strand board, or OSB.  Made of wood strands rather than veneer, the new product employed the same principle of cross lamination as did plywood, thereby providing the performance benefits of orienting the wood grain in alternating layers.  These Performance-Rated Panels, whether plywood or OSB, are designed and manufactured to meet the demanding performance requirements of specific end-use applications, such as subflooring, wall and roof sheathing, and exterior siding. 

The idea of “reconstituting” wood fiber to improve on wood’s inherent structural properties—whether as veneer for plywood or as strands for OSB—has led in recent years to a technological revolution and the acceptance and use of whole new categories of engineered wood products, such as glued laminated (glulam) timber, wood I-joists, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), oriented strand lumber (OSL), etc. 

With its growing OSB constituency, and then also with the addition to its membership of these other engineered wood product manufacturers in both the U.S. and Canada, the American Plywood Association changed its name again in 1994 to APA—The Engineered Wood Association.  The “APA” was retained as part of the name because of its widespread reputation for quality within the design, construction and regulatory communities. 

Today, APA, as the organization is still commonly called, represents approximately 160 softwood plywood, OSB, glulam, wood I-joist, structural composite lumber and other structural engineered wood product mills in 22 states and seven provinces. 

Its services and activities are equally diverse.  Among them:  new product qualification, quality auditing and testing, standards development and maintenance, building code and regulatory body liaison, development of end-use recommendations, user and specifier field support, electronic and printed product and application information, market research, demand and production forecasting, product and systems application research and testing, marketplace education and training, product promotion, and industry communication. 

“It’s a tough year to be celebrating an anniversary,” notes APA President Dennis Hardman.  “The housing market is the worst its been for a quarter century and the industry is facing difficult times.  On the other hand, our 75 years as an organization is powerful testimony to this industry’s ability to maintain solidarity and to come back strong from adverse market conditions.  We’ve done that time and time again.  And that’s certainly something to celebrate.”