Simpson Strong-Tie is the connector and fastener brand of Simpson Manufacturing Co., a Pleasanton, Calif., company traded on the NYSE as SSD. It dates to 1956, when Barclay Simpson built a joist hanger for someone who needed to tie 2×4 roof members together. Today it engineers and load-tests code-listed connectors, anchors, fasteners and prefabricated shearwalls for wood, steel and concrete construction, sold through dealers and lumberyards. Simpson reported third-quarter 2026 net sales of $638.1 million on Oct. 26 and said its steel costs are up more than 50% in a year. New connector pricing usually lands in January, so framers bidding spring work should plan for it.
The part of Simpson Strong-Tie a specifier deals with most is not a connector but a document. The company publishes product catalogs that carry engineering design data and anchorage detailing alongside the part numbers. The Strong-Wall shearwall catalog is one example, combining product data, design information and installation and anchorage details in a single reference.
Software sits next to the literature. CFS Designer is a downloadable program for cold-formed steel beam-column design to AISI specifications. It covers wall studs, openings, stacked walls, floor joists, spandrel framing, X-braces and shear walls, automates connection design for some curtain wall and bridging connectors, writes calculations out as PDF, and exports one- and two-span openings to AutoCAD. A companion tool, Anchor Designer for Concrete, handles concrete anchorage. Both are sold on a trial-then-license basis, which is unusual for a connector manufacturer and makes the published catalog values directly usable in a design workflow.
Product families reach past joist hangers and holdowns. Anchoring systems run from adhesives through light-duty mechanical anchors such as the Sure Wall line. Lateral systems include prefabricated Strong-Wall shearwalls, among them a high-strength steel version. Cold-formed steel framing connectors form a separate catalog. Mass timber has its own solutions group built around glued-in-rod assemblies using Timber-SET epoxy, with ICC-ES evaluation behind the adhesive, which matters when a CLT or glulam connection has to be code-justified rather than argued.
Training is run as an accredited program rather than a sales visit. Simpson Strong-Tie is an IACET accredited provider and lists AIA/HSW and ICC approved online courses, with course approvals from bodies including New York State Building Standards and Codes, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Massachusetts, BC Housing and AIBD. Workshops are grouped as builder training, repair and retrofit, light-frame construction, commercial construction, and wind and seismic. Regional training centers combine classroom instruction with hands-on product installation, and online CEU courses and recorded webinars cover the same ground remotely.
Those centers are mostly attached to the company’s own buildings. US factories sit in Stockton and Riverside, California; Chandler, Arizona; McKinney, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; West Chicago, Illinois; Gallatin, Tennessee, for fastening systems; and Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, for specials. Distribution centers cover Kent, Denver, West Valley City, Las Vegas, Houston, Jacksonville, Kennesaw, High Point, Kansas City, Theodore, Jessup, Enfield and Kapolei. Thirteen of those US addresses double as training sites, so the nearest workshop is usually the nearest warehouse. Factories, warehouses and training facilities also operate in Canada, Europe, Asia, the Pacific Rim and South America, and a dealer locator points buyers to stocking lumberyards.
