Forty Under 40: Martin Swope

In 1998 Martin Swope was the CFO of a computer consulting company and was about to go into a financial planning career. But, a few days after talking to his friend Dick Latta about his career plans, Latta called to say he thought it was time Swope worked for him.

In January 2000 Swope was made vice president, running the wood truss manufacturing business and managing 105 employees.

Swope didn’t have any experience in that division, having worked on the poultry side up to that time as an assistant operations manager, but he stuck with it.

Since 2002, after streamlining the company’s manufacturing processes, sales in the division have doubled.

Swope grew up in Lincoln and learned the value of hard work as a youth cleaning out breeder houses and “doing other jobs no one else wanted to do.”
“I learned there are all sorts of jobs out there and all of them are important,” he said.

Swope enjoys seeing the vision for the future and doing what it takes to make his company No. 1. To achieve this, his best advice for others is “when someone with experience is talking, it’s time to listen.”

Swope earned a bachelor’s degree in administrative management in 1994 and his MBA in 1995, both from the University of Arkansas.