WHAT’S NEXT FOR TREX? A Q&A with Trex COO Adam Zambanini IN THE WAKE OF SIGNIFICANT TRANSFORMATIONS at Trex Company since last fall, we had the chance to sit down with Adam Zambanini, COO, to discuss what’s on the horizon for 2025. From product innovations to industry trends, we explored how Trex is positioning itself for the future and what deck builders can expect to see.
we have products at every single price point that are the best looking and the best performing. I think you’re going to see more innovation from us as in how much more value we can pack into that deck board. Not necessarily take the price of the deck board up but add more value to the deck board at those price points.
Q: Trex obviously came to market as a decking company, and still holds 45% market share. What are your plans in the next five years to gain more market share on the decking side of your business? A: I would say this is where we get into performance engineering. We have our new SunComfortable technology, which is heat-mitigating technology. I think that’s a big consumer driver these days. I would say within the next three to five years, decking will probably all have that sort of technology across the board. There are certain applications—marine, fire—where there’s more performance. We’re looking at all those sorts of categories in terms of how we can expand. There are some things on the aesthetics side that I think could be gamechangers that we’re looking at. We just went through this whole new launch of Lineage (decking) and it’s really what the consumer prefers. It has done really, really well. So, in my mind, you’re going to see more products now as we just cleaned up the high-end, now you’re going to see us start to look at the other tiers. Probably something in that middle tier would be next in terms of something that we address, and then probably back to the lower tier. If you look at us in our history, we kind of work our way up the chain and back down the chain to make sure
Q: What metrics are you using to gauge the 6% to 12% growth that you want year over year? And if you don’t achieve those metrics, do you have contingency plans on how you might pivot, or areas you might want to develop further, if you need to bolster some part of your growth plan that is not working? A: I would say double-digit growth year over year. I’d say we operate lean. What we do is we plan for growth. We’ve always kept the place lean, so when we do add people, we need them along the way. We have a pretty good view quarter by quarter in terms of what the economic metrics are and if what we’re investing in is going to make financial sense in the future. We’ve not really overbuilt in terms of gotten too far out ahead of our strategic plan and then had to pull back in any sort of way. As a matter of fact, we’re building a greenfield plant in Little Rock, AR., right now, knowing that in a couple-years’ timeframe, we’re going to need that to grow. We’ll be right on point of what we planned for in terms of growth. Having multiple plants in three different areas across the country, we will be the only one in our category to have that. So, it gives us an extra layer of protection having the extra facilities, while providing the ability for future growth in the Southeast region, which is the fastest growing part of the country.
38 | Deck Specialist | March/April 2025