Truss Tales

To hide mental decline is nearly impossible, unless you’re the boss and have guardians, who are usually family members. I witnessed this with Walter Moehlenpah, owner of MiTek’s predecessor, Hydro-Air Engineering, and I had to leave the company before it nearly collapsed, as did many...

An ingenious machine that is used in nearly every truss plant has been reborn 40 years after its introduction. It could fit in the back of a pickup truck, it sold for less than $5000, and it made an immediate impact. Yet, few would know the inventor, Donald Bowser, and know that his technology...

One gentleman owned the best plant in a fast-growing town. The other worked for the best supplier in a fast-growing role. Both had what seemed to be unassailable credentials and both adapted well to changing market conditions. But only one would survive. Their tales tell a lot about survival in...

The story of how Jim Price, selling homes one-at-a-time, passed William Levitt, who sold one thousand in two days, contains a lesson for today. Although Price is not a name known to many while Levitt’s will be forever associated with his Levittowns, both pioneered production lines that...

If you’re traveling to next week’s National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) International Builders Show (IBS) in Las Vegas, you can see what can be done with trusses at The New American Home (TNAH), a “cliff-dwelling” with a distant view of the Strip. See also what...