Do you understand deflection and deflection differential — and how your truss systems and, more importantly, your clients’ perceptions will be affected? Deflection has been around for an exceptionally long time and always needs to be considered and addressed. To do so, however, we...

I had a chance not long ago to grab coffee with an old college roommate. We’re both engineers by trade, but our careers took different paths — he went into structural consulting, while I went into component design, working with wood trusses. As often happens, the conversation quickly...

Stepping into the CEO role at Paragon comes at an interesting moment, both for our company and for the building components industry as a whole. Paragon recently turned ten years old. In software, especially software aimed at a domain as technically demanding as structural components, most of...

Ghosting has become a common occurrence, but in the hiring world, it carries real consequences. At its core, ghosting happens when one party simply stops responding, even though a level of engagement had been established. In the building components manufacturing industry, and in my role as a...

In my 30+ years in this industry, I’ve seen some of the most sophisticated automation money can buy. We have saws that think faster than humans and auto-jigging systems that move with surgical precision. But here is the cold, hard truth: the most critical piece of infrastructure in your...

Sometimes, a designed and engineered connection will appear to look like a member to member gap. Because of that, we need to ask the question: should the truss designer always try to eliminate a member to member gap in a truss? Generally speaking, yes, it’s always worthwhile, but there are...

Candidates and employers keep asking me the same question — what am I seeing in hiring trends for 2026? The honest answer is “it’s complicated.” The more honest answer is that I don’t think the market has made up its mind yet. It’s April and, under normal...

My March article, “Prevent Scope Creep Becoming ‘Just the Way We Do Things’,” talks about drawing clearer boundaries so extra work doesn’t quietly erode margins, burn out designers, and reset customer expectations. While all of that matters, it would be unrealistic...

The MSR Workshop has a solid reputation for providing practical, real world learning, and this spring’s program in Orange Beach, Alabama is shaping up to be one of the strongest yet. The 2026 agenda features two concentrated blocks of educational sessions — Thursday morning (8 am to...

A chase is an intentional opening in a floor truss created by omitting specific diagonal webs to provide space for HVAC ducts, plumbing lines, or electrical runs. For structural efficiency, chases should be located within the middle third of the truss span, where shear forces are lowest....