Home Building Technology, Part XI: Rapid Growth and Competition

Issue #17316 - November 2025 | Page #10

By Joe Kannapell

The news of trusses being built with newfangled plates was so well received that it raced across the country in the late 1950s. The first to take notice were homebuilders who built with stick framing, who then wanted to try trusses. The first to respond were lumberyards, who were well positioned to build trusses. Then other suppliers came from inside the building business. And finally, entrepreneurs of all stripes put their hearts and hands to work building trusses. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]

Homebuilder Julius Gaines was the first to build plated trusses on a large scale on his South Florida jobsites. With each house he trussed, he convinced more of his peers to convert to trusses and they needed suppliers. One of the first to act was Gaines’ vendor, Gate City Lumber & Supply, who set up a truss shop in nearby Ft. Lauderdale. Later, Gaines’ concrete block vendor, Fred L. Wolfe Supply Company, put a truss line in Miami. In 1957, the first independent, Robert Root, founded Dade Truss & Manufacturing in south Miami. (Root’s startup had no connection to the Dade Truss Company that would be founded in 1978 by Salvador Jurado in northwest Miami.) By the time Gaines trussed his 1000th house in the early 1960s, word had spread across the country.

The most likely candidates for new truss plants were the estimated 25,000 U.S. lumberyards. While they had the facilities, the materials, and the relationships, they still needed the proper equipment, and one key innovation made that possible, the Hydro-Air Monopress. The Monopress was an easily maneuverable C-frame press that had enough capacity to press most plates. Originally developed for one of the sizeable Boise Cascade yards, the Monopress could also fit in the back shed of a rural outlet, and it cost less than $10,000 ($80,000 today). Furthermore, with the purchase of a Monopress or any of its knockoffs, the equipment salesman would provide guidance on starting up operations, and he would continue to offer advice, in return for the plate business.

While lumberyards hosted the most truss plants, independent entrepreneurs operated some of the most consequential, especially those who served the massive developments of the 1960s. Levittown, New Jersey helped fuel the startup of Lenny Sylk’s Material Fabrication (later Shelter Systems). Sun City near Phoenix sparked the startup of Herb Owen’s Precision Fabrication. While the scale of these developments was impossible to match, every high growth market had large tract homebuilder candidates. Centex, the largest U.S. homebuilder in 1960, and Fox & Jacobs gave Charlie Barns’ Dallas-based Lumber Company the opportunity to become a truss productivity showplace, encouraging the founding of Dick Rotto’s Trussway and many others. Barns went on to develop the eponymous trailer and was the main promoter of the first truss fabricators association, the Component Manufacturers Conference (CMC) which formed under the auspices of the Truss Plate Institute (TPI).

Centex also took their tract home expertise to the nation’s largest housing market in Chicago and provided fertile ground for new truss startups. The first to respond was the large chain of Edward Hines lumberyards, followed quickly by independent Dave Chambers and several others. This entry of both established lumberyards and individually owned plants became commonplace in communities across the country and stimulated the growth of the truss business. On one side, Hines bet that offering trusses would enable them to capture the entire building material package from competing lumberyards who lacked a truss plant. On the other side, Chambers could sell trusses to those lumberyards that Hines targeted. Furthermore, Hines’ competitors were incentivized to install their own truss equipment.

While the hot demand for housing sparked the growth of the truss industry, the plentiful supply of capital nourished it, as recounted in a TIME Magazine article under the heading, “The New Horatio Algers” (Nov. 16, 1962, pg. 85). Dave and his brother Henry Chambers sought nearly 100% financing for their proposed plant, providing “big First National Bank with a comprehensive projection of sales, costs, and future capital requirements. The First National not only agreed to future financing but also recommended an accountant to handle the brothers’ bookkeeping.” Unstated in the article was Dave’s prior success in Chicago as the sales manager for well-regarded Scholz Homes. However, implied in the article was the presumption that the brand new truss industry, with a scant national track record, was a safe bet for the bank. Years later, Henry repeated his brother’s experience founding Chambers Truss in Florida.

Of all the factors that gave rise to the truss industry, one of the least appreciated was the optimism of the postwar generation. I still recall Dave Chambers’ infectious spirit when I first met him 50 years ago, but I was surprised to see his closet-sized office. Later, I realized that Chambers and his successful peers had to run no-frills businesses to survive the cyclicality of the housing industry. Despite the challenges of the business, many of these pioneers also invested in the future of the entire industry by creating the foundations for a strong industry association. Optimistic, pragmatic, and savvy, the pioneers prepared the way for the rapid growth of the industry.