The Real Estate Market Crash

The Smith Brothers’ Engineering & Entrepreneurial Com­pany was a firm I owned together with my brother-in-law, Steinar Bratlie. We ran a small contracting business with about ten employees. I was heavily involved in church activi­ties, traveling a great deal to various conferences at home and abroad. For the most part, I paid my travel expenses from my own pocket. However, the fact that I was away traveling so much caused a lot of extra work for my brother-in-law, Steinar. He had a great capacity for hard work, and without his willingness, the business would not have been able to function.

In 1989 the real estate market began falling significantly. Our business was involved in several owner/builder projects where we bore a considerable risk because of fluctuations in the market. We were forced to divest ourselves of several owner/builder apartments for far less than cost. Because of my position in the church, I was rather vulnerable, an easy target for anyone who wanted to shoot. Employees from our accounting firm leaked private information to unauthorized people in the church. At the same time, I had to properly fulfill my obligations to my creditors. There was war going on within and without at the same time, and my opposers en­joyed every minute of it. The information about the business was leaked to Olaf Bekkevold and Erling Ekholt, among oth­ers.