Already 2024 is turning out to be a big year for timber sourcing and manufacturing company Roy O. Martin, with its its 100th anniversary in business. And the company just recently announced it will invest more than $30 million to modernize its manufacturing plant in Oakdale, located in Allen Parish in Southwest Louisiana.
This three generation, family-owned company is headquartered in Alexandria, Louisiana. Chairman and CEO Roy O. Martin III tells us this upgrade should send a strong message. “We’re telling them that we’re built to last. And we’re going to put money in our facilities to make them the most modern in the world so that your job is more stable than other places. And we can thwart foreign and domestic competition because we strive to be lowest cost manufacturer in the United States. We ran right through COVID, we went through the Great Recession, 24 hours 7 days a week.”
Their Oakdale facility produces oriented strand board, abbreviated as OSB. Some know the product as flakeboard because it is formed by adding adhesives and then compressing layers of wood strands in specific orientations. And spending $30 million to improve OSB production speaks volumes about Martin’s expectations with the housing market. “We’re seeing good growth in states with good governments, with low crime, and with good schools.”
Martin says they employ about 1,400 people at three main campuses, with thousands more indirect jobs created because of the business. Martin says by some estimates seven indirect jobs are created for every direct job at the company.
