John Calvin Jureit - Wikipedia
John Calvin Jureit (July 24, 1918 – September 9, 2005) was an engineer and the inventor of the Gang-Nail connector plate, used in building construction.
This invention has been widely credited for the boom in affordable housing, productivity increases and improved building durability.Early life Edit
J. Calvin Jureit (pronounced JOOR-ee-ut) was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Lillian and William Jureit. His father was a baker who emigrated to the United States from Germany before J. Calvin was born. In 1922, the family moved to Miami, Florida, where his father's bakery flourished.
Military service Edit
After graduating from Miami Senior High School 1935, Jureit studied art before enrolling at the University of Miami to study accounting and chemistry. In 1942, Jureit enlisted in the Navy Seabees and was stationed at Camp Perry in Williamsburg, Virginia. Here he met his future wife, Mildred Hildebrand, who was working as a secretary at the local USO.
Jureit was trained as a cartographer and sent to Australia, where he was employed making relief maps from plywood and clay for use as pilot briefing tools. ...â€
Prior to his invention, making roof trusses was a difficult and time-consuming job, requiring highly skilled carpenters to make precise cuts and toe-nail two adjoining pieces of wood together. Small mistakes would cause serious time delays as well as weaken the truss. The improved strength of the Gang-Nail plate was evidenced in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed many homes in South Florida but homes built with the Gang-Nail plate were far more likely to survive than those whose trusses had been toe-nailed.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin_Jureit
