Nate Jorgensen: 2024 Distinguished Achievement Award recipient

BSCEE ’87 (Tuck School of Business Executive Education Program ‘97, Dartmouth)
Chief Executive Officer, Boise Cascade

A structural engineer, executive and leader in manufacturing and distributing sustainable wood-based construction products and materials.

Nate Jorgensen’s first week at the helm of wood products building materials company Boise Cascade was one to remember.

A structural engineer, he had been with the company since 2015; three promotions later, he was the company’s chief executive. That was March 2020, when swaths of society shut down as COVID-19 exploded around the world.

“There wasn’t a script out there that said, ‘Here’s what you do when you have a global pandemic,’” Jorgensen says. “We had to rely on our values as an organization to make sure we were really clear on what our priorities were—which was first and foremost making sure of the health of our associates each and every day. And then business continuity, to make sure our company continued to exist in an environment where we really didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Four years later, Boise Cascade continues to thrive under Jorgensen’s leadership. The Fortune 500 company has approximately 7,400 employees and logged $6.3 billion in sales in 2023.

Jorgensen has always looked for opportunities to expand and diversify his skillset. From 1987 to 2015, he worked with Weyerhaeuser, beginning as a structural engineer in the Trus Joist unit, working with engineered wood products. Ultimately, he rose to vice president of North American residential business.

At Weyerhaeuser, Jorgensen transitioned into sales after a few years of working in engineering. In the late 1990s, he joined a team that spent three years preparing the company’s backend computer system for the new millennium to avoid the Y2K bug.

Jorgensen credits his successes in his various roles to lessons learned in UW-Madison’s engineering classes.

“Beyond the technical engineering skills, my engineering classes taught me things like collaboration and gave me confidence in what I was doing and in seeing what was possible to do,” he says. “Engineering requires a lot of attention to detail and planning, and that’s a skill that’s served me not only in the classroom but throughout my career.”

Jorgensen is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Wood Council and a board member for Idaho Power and IDACORP. Idaho Business Review named him a CEO of Influence in 2023.

What do you enjoy about your career?

A lot of my career has been tied to construction and housing. Looking back on what I’ve done, the companies I’ve been involved with have really been a part of providing housing for our communities. As I think about what’s important in our nation, in our communities and to our families, one of the key answers is homes. It’s a privilege to work with companies that have been and will continue to be a part answering that need.

How did your engineering education enable your success?

For me, the work ethic and grit you had to bring to it every day. There was a lot of great talent in those classrooms that you worked with but also had to kind of compete with. So that resilience and grit that I needed was a part of my education and it still helps me today.

Which do you prefer?

Winter or summer in Madison?
Summer in Madison is spectacular.

Fun on the Terrace or fun on Lake Mendota?
Whenever we go back to visit Madison, there are a lot of places we try to get to, but we’ve definitely got to get to the Terrace.

Sweet Caroline or Jump Around?
Jump Around