🔒Lumber and construction: Prefabricated components help speed construction timelines

Kevin Hancock, chairman of Hancock Lumber, predicts another healthy year for the lumber, housing and construction sectors in Maine. “The builders we work with generally have solid to strong project backlogs in front of them and speak with confidence about the coming year,” Hancock says. The Casco-based company operates 18 locations including lumberyards and eastern white pine sawmills in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and has expanded beyond supplying traditional building materials and services to offer made-in-Maine prefabricated roof and floor trusses, wall panels and tiny homes. More growth is on the horizon. “In a few months, we will be breaking ground on a 44,000-square-foot wall panel and housing components manufacturing plant in Oxford,” Hancock says. “This highly automated facility will increase our production capacity tenfold, raise the bar on quality, speed up on-site construction timelines and expand our framing solutions product offerings for multifamily builders and developers.” There are also plans for an expansion of the paint-and-stain facility at the Casco mill. “Most exciting to me is that our industry continues to attract lots of young talent and new employees,” he says. “Maine has an amazing workforce, and it is energizing to watch our teams manufacture, design and deliver on our promises to builders as Maine continues to expand, reinvent itself and grow.”