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Company History
Brothers Don and Dave Martel literally grew up in the home construction industry. For nearly two decades,
they've been helping their father, Roland Martel, build a well-respected business in Connecticut called Martel & Sons Builders. With years of hands-on experience and expertise they knew there had to be a better solution to what appeared to be a simple industry challenge
- how to build attractive and durable custom decks with hidden deck fasteners.
The problem was that current hidden deck fasteners on the market were difficult to install and so expensive that builders avoided using them at all. In 1998, with his good friend and mechanical engineer, David Hartmann, Dave sketched out an idea on a cocktail napkin. After more than a year of revisions, Dave came up with a design he thought would work. After scraping together a few hundred dollars, the pair had laser-cut prototypes made. They used saws and grinders to reshape the prototypes until finally they had a fastener they were satisfied with. They called on brother Don to do the practical testing, by using the hidden deck fasteners on a deck he was building. They were so confident their hidden deck fasteners would be effective, they submitted a patent request almost in parallel with the design process.
Their intuition was right. The design worked beautifully and their patent was approved in 2000.
Hartmann's engineering skills were instrumental as they prepared to start manufacturing their products. Forestville Lumber in Forestville, Connecticut, became the first business to sell Tiger Claw products. In 2003, Tiger Claw introduced a new fastener for composite lumber, tested by the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Today, Tiger Claw hidden deck fasteners are sold in more than 120 retail outlets nationwide. Tiger Claw products are also available in Home Depot — the world's largest home improvement retailer and the second largest retailer in the United States.
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