Holdowns first appeared in the 1966 connector catalog — all two of them. The HD24 was an embedded strap that used either nails or bolts, and the HD2 used bolts to the post and an anchor bolt to the concrete. This first sighting of holdowns was missing a list of allowable loads.
The 1967 catalog fixed the allowable loads oversight, and added a higher-capacity HD5. The HD7 was added in 1968, and the HD6 arrived in 1971. When customers asked for higher and higher loads, we developed the HD9, HD12 and HD15 and added them to the 1984 catalog.
A crazy fact about the HD5 is that its final appearance in our connector catalog was in 2009. If you still want one today, you can order it in stainless steel. The HD12 and HD19 (a modified HD15) are still made to this day.
A couple of years back we hosted a “Take your daughter or son to work day,” which was a great opportunity for our children to find out what their parents did. We had different activities for the kids to learn about careers and the importance of education in opening up career opportunities. People often ask me what I do for Simpson Strong-Tie and I sometimes laugh about how my son Ryan responded to a questionnaire he filled out that day:
Q. What is your mom/dad's job?
A. Goes and gets coffee and sits at his desk
Q. What does your mom/dad actually do at work?
A. Walks in the test lab and checks things
When I am not checking things in the lab or sitting at my desk drinking coffee, I manage Engineering Research and Development for Simpson Strong-Tie, focusing on new product development for connectors and lateral systems.
I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and I am a licensed Civil and Structural Engineer in California. Prior to joining Simpson Strong-Tie, I worked for 10 years as a consulting structural engineer designing commercial, industrial, multi-family, mixed-use and retail projects. I was fortunate in those years to work at a great engineering firm that did a lot of everything. This allowed me to gain experience designing with wood, structural steel, concrete, concrete block and cold-formed steel as well as working on many seismic retrofits of historic unreinforced masonry buildings.
View all posts by Paul McEntee
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