Industry Mourns Loss of John “Chip” Dean

On August 4, 2026, John Chipman “Chip” Dean passed away at his home in Placerville, CA after a battle with cancer. Chip served component manufacturers for nearly 50 years, in a wide range of leadership and entrepreneurial roles. He took what he learned in his first eight years designing trusses, enriched it through increasingly responsible positions at Gang-Nail and MiTek for 21 years, and transformed it into Component Runner, a highly successful design outsourcing business. Most remarkably, Chip wrote a detailed business plan 20 years before starting Component Runner and much later executed his plan to near perfection.

Chip’s gifted technical mind enabled him to master software programs and applications from UNIX to Photoshop to every truss-oriented application that could possibly benefit his customers. He began his career designing trusses for Trusscom in Sacramento on a timesharing computer, learning under Norm Scheel, who remains one of the most prominent structural engineers in California today. Chip went on to develop in-house scheduling software on a Tandy/Radio Shack computer at Tilton Truss, leading to his hiring by Gang-Nail as their first dedicated regional technical representative.

Chip called on customers in the Northeast for seven years before being summoned to MiTek in St. Louis, MO to take on key software leadership roles, eventually managing 30 technical support representatives, and having a key influence on MiTek’s software development. During a highly competitive period, Chip’s technical leadership enabled MiTek to win countless plate accounts and establish its software dominance. From there, he directed global technical support and subsequently became Marketing Director on MiTek’s executive team.

In 2007, Chip established Component Runner in concert with his brother, Dave Bailey, and weathered the Great Recession to become the leading independent provider of design services. Chip served as the President until 2019 when he shifted roles to be Principal and moved to a semi-retired role of handling the business side of the company. Dave assumed the role of President at that time, handling the day-to-day operations, and they continued to run the company together.

As Chip contemplated retirement, he moved with his wife Alice, who survives him, to a beautiful estate in Placerville, CA, in the Sierra Nevada foothills above Sacramento. Few understand the tremendous impact he has had upon our industry, and he will be sorely missed.

Photos courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/ComponentRunnerLLC