Glued laminated timber, commonly referred to as glulam, is a type of structural engineered wood product constituted by layers of dimensional lumber bonded together with durable, moisture-resistant structural adhesives so that all of the grain runs parallel to the longitudinal axis. In North America, the material providing the laminations is termed laminating stock or lamstock. History The principles of glulam construction are believed to date back to the 1860s, in the assembly room of King Edward VI College, a school in Southampton, England. The first patent however emerged in 1901 when Otto Karl Freidrich Hetzer, a carpenter from Weimar, Germany, patented this method of construction. Approved in Switzerland, Hetzer’s patent explored creating a straight beam out of several laminations glued together. In 1906 he received a patent in Germany for curved sections of glulam. Other countries in Europe soon began approving patents and by 1922, glulam had been used in 14 countries. The technology was first brought to the United States by Max Hanisch Sr., who had been associated with the Hetzer firm in 1906 before emigrating to the United States in 1923. With no financial backing, it was not until 1934 that Hanisch was able to first use glulam in the United States. The project, a school and community gym in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, took time to get started, as manufacturers were hard to find, but eventually the Thompson Brothers Boat Manufacturing Company took on the project. The Wisconsin Industrial Commission, however, rejected the arches as they had no previous experience working with glulam. A compromise was reached in which the arches could be used if they were used in conjunction with bolts, lags, metal strapping, and angles to reinforce the structure. Though the reinforcements were unnecessary, ground finally broke in late 1934 featuring four spans of three-hinged arches with clear spans of . The partnership for this project lead to the creation of Unit Structures Inc., a construction firm for glulam owned by both the Hanisch and Thompson families. In 1936, Unit Structures patented both the forming equipment used to produce glulam arches and the glulam arches themselves. A second project, this time for the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), gave Unit Structures the opportunity to prove the strength and stiffness of glulam members to architects and engineers. Full-scale load tests conducted by placing of sandbags on the roof exceeded the design specs by 50%. The noted deflections were also