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We’ve reached July and BCMC in Milwaukee, WI is only three months away. Whether you’re planning on traveling to Milwaukee or not, I highly recommend that you take the time to make time to attend our upcoming Feed the Beast truss plant tour! [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full...

My career at Simpson Strong-Tie came full circle this summer. As I take the reins as the company’s new Vice President of Market Development – Component Manufacturers, I can’t help but think back to my earliest days at the company when my path crossed with the Iowa Truss...

Credit has been tightening in our industry over the past year, making it challenging to obtain financing for new or used equipment. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March of 2023, followed by the failure of First Republic Bank in May, caused a seismic shift in our...

I love history, particularly the history of wood framing in the U.S. One segment of this category that has some confusion surrounding it is the history of metal connectors used to join two or more wood members to make a structural connection. There are many types of structural connectors,...

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” – Ralph Nichols, American psychologist and communication theorist, often referred to as the “Father of...

When we were young, we often said, “I want to own that.” Whether it was a new car, a boat, or a specific type of computer, owning something had significant meaning. We felt a sense of accomplishment when we attained something we desired. As we grew older, some of us were inspired to...

One constant thorn in the side of truss fabricators is the cost of preparing quotes, often multiple times for the same job through the life of a project. I find that this is especially true for custom homes, as they often go through numerous revisions for aesthetic, budget, zoning, and other...

After years in which dealers struggled from crisis to crisis, a slew of public reports and economic indicators suggest we can expect many more months of muddling along. Our surfing metaphor of two years ago has given way to the paddleboard, where the only way to speed up is to paddle...

Typically, trusses are spaced evenly. The spacing shown on MiTek engineering drawings is a tributary area carried by the trusses. Each truss is designed to support one-half of the roof/floor load on each side. The spacing between the trusses may be of any combination if the tributary area does...

One interesting part of being a field engineer for Simpson Strong-Tie is having the opportunity to see how different structural engineers may take different approaches to similar designs. We at Simpson Strong-Tie have come to appreciate these different approaches and embrace this phenomenon by...