Freres, an Oregon-based mass plywood producer, created this unique booth entirely from mass plywood. / Photo Credit: Wisconsin DNR
By Alex Anderson, Wisconsin DNR Forest Products Specialist
For the last 10 years, stakeholders in the mass timber industry have gathered in Portland, Oregon, for the annual International Mass Timber Conference (IMTC).
The 2026 IMTC was well-attended by a variety of businesses showing off their wares: mass timber fastener manufacturers, mass plywood and cross-laminated timber (CLT) producers and fabricators, engineering and building firms specializing in mass timber applications, and many others from a host of different sectors came to network and show off new, unique products. More than 3,000 attendees from 28 different countries attended the 2026 IMTC, which was about six times the size of the inaugural event, held in 2016, and nearly twice the size of the event five years ago.
The DNR Forest Products Services team hasn’t been able to attend the conference since 2021. Since then, the event has continued to expand in popularity. This year, there were three keynote speakers at the event, which took place from Tuesday, March 31 through Thursday, April 2. On day one, the keynote address was a series of live pitchers from several developers to a group of investors from different agencies. This offered a rare glimpse into the nuances of financial discussions surrounding mass timber development. Day two of the event had Kengo Kuma as the keynote speaker. Kuma is a famed Japanese architect who was responsible for designing the primary stadium for the 2020 Summer Olympics when Japan hosted the events. He has also done a myriad of fascinating designs utilizing mass timber and other timber elements for both structure and appearance. Finally, day three’s keynote involved mass timber specialists from Amazon and Meta, who described their respective businesses’ interest and commitment to building with sustainable materials.
In addition to meeting many new folks and reconnecting with others, the IMTC provided a unique opportunity for the launch of the Great Lakes Mass Timber Collaborative’s (GLMTC) Regional Vision document, which spells out the long-term goals of the group and creates some hierarchical clarity for future funding. This event, hosted after the conclusion of the main IMTC presentations on the final day of the conference, involved each of the GLMTC state leads presenting for a few minutes on each leads’ respective state’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities surrounding wider mass timber adoption. Alex Anderson, Wisconsin DNR Forest Products Specialist and Wisconsin’s state lead, gave a short presentation on Wisconsin’s forest products and forestry industries and how they might work in the larger Great Lakes mass timber ecosystem.
A couple of the many interesting products on display at this year’s IMTC:
Kalesnikoff, a Canadian mass timber manufacturer, unveiled modular mass timber classrooms at this year’s IMTC. / Photo Credit: Wisconsin DNR
Art Massif, another Canadian mass timber company, showed off their “aspen pure” line of glulams, which are made entirely of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). Their testing showed these beams to be similar in strength and stiffness values to Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) products. / Photo Credit: Wisconsin DNR