The original Hickman business traded as a home-grown timber sawmill, based at the same location as National Hickman in Wolverhampton today. John S Hickman & Co Ltd, was established in the early 1900s, and in 1969 John F Hickman joined his father’s company to trade as a timber merchant serving the local community. In 1981 John Stoker joined the business and established a direct import trade. Throughout the 80s and 90s the company developed into a strong regional supplier of stress graded softwood carcassing, sheet materials and softwood mouldings to the new housing sector in middle England. In 1999 the business was sold and a new company, Hickman Industries Ltd was formed,with John Stoker acquiring 100% of the ordinary share capital. Mike Burlton was appointed Group Managing Director, and National Hickman was established  specialising in the processing, manufacture and distribution of engineered timber building systems to all the major UK home builders. The MDF plant, which was established as early as 1990, increased capacity enormously with the introduction of  four new production lines housed in more than 100,000 ft² of purpose-built warehousing, providing huge volumes of MDF mouldings for National Hickman and the markets it serves. During 2000-2008 National Hickman more than trebled its sales, and established its own Centre for Timber Engineering, to become the largest single-site processor and distributor of engineered I-Beams to the UK Home building market. In 2004 National Hickman (Scotland) moved to its new 30,000ft² warehouse in Glenrothes in Fife, doubling this to 60,000ft² in 2006. A new 32 seat conference and training centre was built at National Hickman in Wolverhampton, and  is now widely used by both manufacturers and national home builders. At the same time the National ‘Doorkit’  Distribution Centre doubled it’s size to 50.000ft². 2007 saw the opening of a further 42,000ft² facility at Parkside in Wolverhampton, to provide for the distribution of MDF mouldings to national home builders. With the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession in 2009, National Hickman right sized its business for what became the lowest number of new houses built (per annum) since World war 2. All of its property, manufacturing and distribution assets were preserved , and strong finances supported the dedicated management and workforce teams to ensure the business emerged from the doldrums, perfectly positioned to promptly respond to vastly increased demand in Q2 2009. National Hickman has added yet more space to its National ‘ Door kit’ distribution hub, and it has launched its latest business-Loco2mmc ® ltd which will create a completely new dimension in the residential housing market.