A life to celebrate – Tor Bakke

Earlier this month, NFM lost one of its founders, Tor Bakke. He had an enormous impact on the company from its first days until he passed away. His life is definitely one to be celebrated and here are some words from his friend and CEO of NFM Group, Walter Øverland.

I became acquainted with Tor Bakke in 1983 when I started in the Norwegian home guard youth section. That was located in Ski outside Oslo, which is where the NFM Group Headquarters is today.

Tor was active in that unit and eventually took over the responsibility as the youth leader. After I finished my service in the Norwegian Military, I returned to Ski where Tor and I ran the youth home guard group together for several years. We also served together on a number of courses and exercises in the military where we worked as hired instructors in the late 1980s until the turn of the millennium.

Then in 1996, we started the “Norwegian Defence Material” company together with Toivo Horvei and Knut Olav Gaaseby. That small business has developed into the NFM Group, as it is known today.

In 1998, Tor and I started full-time as the company’s first employees and we ran the business from Tor’s basement and even built a warehouse in his children’s rooms after they had moved out.

Tor was never afraid to make decisions that drove the company forward and in the beginning, he was heavily involved in all tasks and duties required to start the business. This included packing products, account management and sales.

Tor has always shown great concern for all our employees taking his time to stop and talk to them whenever possible to ensure they were doing ok. In recent years, he has primarily worked with purchasing and logistics in Equipnor as well as being an active board member in the NFM group.

He will be dearly missed.
His was indeed, a life worth celebrating.

Walter Øverland