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Tolko joins Alberta Forest Products Association

The Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA) has announced that Tolko Industries has officially joined the association.

Tolko is a leading manufacturer of a wide range of forest products for customers around the world, including lumber, plywood and veneer, oriented strand board (OSB), co-products, biomass power, and a growing number of specialty wood products. For more than 65 years, their family-owned company has delivered reliability, flexibility, efficiency, and quality. Tolko holds third-party certification on the forestlands they sustainably manage in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, and they play an active role in the communities where their employees live and work.

Tolko has operated in Alberta since 1994 when their OSB mill in High Prairie first came online. Their two other divisions in Alberta include an OSB and LSL facility near Slave Lake, as well as a dimensional lumber mill in High Level, which is also home to a joint venture state-of-the-art pellet plant they own with DRAX. Combined, Tolko’s three facilities directly employ almost 700 workers.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Tolko join the AFPA family,” said AFPA president and CEO Jason Krips. “Tolko is a company that is known for their values, and their focus on diversity and inclusion, Indigenous partnerships, and innovation. We are excited to welcome them to the association and look forward to working with their team to continue to drive Alberta’s forest industry forward.”

“Tolko is a family-owned and values-driven workplace, and we’ve been in the business for over 65 years,” said Tolko’s president and CEO, Brad Thorlakson. “We are dedicated to our communities and our people, and we work hard to become an employer and producer of choice. We are always looking forward and planning for our future, and we are excited to join AFPA and to work with the Association to continue to advance sustainable forestry in the province.”

Tolko’s vice president, Indigenous & government relations and sustainability, Janis Simpkins, will sit on AFPA’s board of directors and will help provide governance, oversight, and strategic leadership to the association.