John Calvin Jureit (July 24, 1918 – September 9, 2005) was a Civil engineer and the inventor of the Gang Nail connector plate, used in building construction specifically for the joining of timber truss joints of roof, floor trusses and prefabricated wall panels. This invention has been widely credited for the boom in affordable housing, productivity increases and improved building durability throughout the world. He went on to be one of the founders and the first president of the Truss Plate Institute (TPI) and built Automated Building Components, Inc. with headquarters in Miami, Florida into a publicly traded company on the American Stock Exchange and the worldwide industry leader in truss plate manufacturing, truss manufacturing, truss press/saw machinery and computerized engineering and design. Early life John Calvin ("Cal") Jureit (pronounced Jury-it) was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Lillian E. and William F. Jureit, Sr. His father was a baker who emigrated to the United States from Germany prior to the start of WWI and before J. Calvin was born. In 1922, his parents along with him and his younger brother Bill moved to Miami, Florida, where his father's bakery flourished. Military service After graduating from Miami Senior High School in 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 Peary near Williamsburg, Virginia. There he met his future wife, Mildred Hildebrand, who was working as a secretary at the local USO, went on to work at Georgia Tech to help Cal get an engineering degree and would ultimately join Cal on the Board of Directors of Automated Building Components, Inc. Jureit was trained as a cartographer and sent to Australia, where he was assigned the job of making relief maps from plywood and clay for use as pilot briefing tools during WWII. Following his six-month stint in Australia, he was sent to New Guinea for an additional six months. Jureit never saw combat but the experience sharpened his desire to become an engineer. Gang-Nail, Inc. Upon his discharge at the end of World War II, Jureit enrolled at Georgia Tech on the G.I. Bill and studied engineering. After graduating as a Civil Engineer he was briefly employed in the roof trust industry prior to leaving it and starting Jureit & Associates, Inc. a soils and foundation engineering firm. In 1955,