By Deon Bahr
In the early 70s, a young BHVH was working on a huge landscape master plan for the Lincoln Airport Authority. Over the course of this work, our client revealed his plan to burn down 34 three-story, Air Force barracks. This delighted the fire department and left the rest of us absolutely appalled at the amount of smoke that would introduce into the atmosphere.
Hat in hand, I presented a scheme to get rid of the barracks, salvage the high-quality materials, preserve the atmosphere, and return a profit for our client. We divided the buildings into groups of four and prepared plans and specifications that allowed contractors to bid on them.
I was very excited about this project and wanted BHVH to have an opportunity to be involved. To avoid exposing the firm legally, we formed the PULP Partnership: Previously Used Lumber Products. To make sure we would win a group of buildings, we bid high on one group and low on another group. We won both bids. So now we had eight huge wooden barracks to salvage.
I still don’t see how we were able to recruit firm partners. From 1974 to 1976, we bought a dump truck, hired a contractor, and rented a storage building. All partners were required to work to complete the task. Then, off we went, completely underestimating the amount of effort it would take to salvage the materials.
Major value in the materials consisted of Number 1 Structural Grade Douglas fir 2 x 12 and 2 x 14 (no knots) with lots of 16p nails. Susan Bahr is now an expert at pulling nails using two crowbars.
Partners: Deon Bahr, George Haecker, Lynn Vermeer, Jim Handeland, Bob LeZotte, Bob Hanna, Stan Milles, Bob Findley, Bob Kalkowski, Craig Wanamaker. After paying expenses, and a lot of hard work, we netted about $1,900/ partner and avoided lots of smoke.

PULP 1974