About Us

In 1951, A.H. Lundberg, Inc. (AHLI), was formed.  A noteworthy event occurred in 1953, when SF cancelled its representative agreements in North America, severing the relationship between AHLI and Kamyr. Also in the mid-1950s, AHLI’s evaporation principal, General American Transportation Corporation, closed its doors. AHLI, together with a former GATC employee now acting as a consultant, began to develop their own evaporation process, culminating in their first sale to Elk Falls mill in Campbell River, B.C., in 1955.

The year 1954 also brought about the formation of the company Lundberg Ahlen Equipment, Ltd (LAEL), which was jointly owned by A.H. Lundberg and Tore Ahlen. The company was formed by the partners to serve the Canadian pulping industry. The companies collaborated to bring technical innovation and entrepreneurial spirit to the pulping industry, particularly on the West Coasts of Canada and the United States. They were able to leverage their reputations on the West Coast to expand throughout North America and the world.

To increase their presence in Europe, the companies developed a relationship with a Portuguese partner, which eventually led to the creation of A.H. Lundberg Limited (LDA) in Lisbon, Portugal in 1969. In addition to representing Kamyr and others, and also developing its own evaporation technology, AHLI was also developing processes peripheral to the fiber line. The processes developed were quite diverse, encompassing environmental processes (collection and destruction of noncondensible gases and foul condensate stripping), heat recovery (from batch kraft blow heat and thermomechanical pulping), and byproduct recovery (turpentine and soap).

Halvar retired from AHLI in 1967, at which time his son, Lennart, was named president of the company. With Halvar’s retirement, the company also lost its representation agreement with Kamyr and became more reliant on its own technologies. Fortunately, the company had a wide range of products to offer, and it continued to develop new processes to serve the pulp and paper industry, including chlorine dioxide generating systems, as well as systems designed to treat the waste streams from this process.

The years of 1975–1976 brought significant changes to Lundberg. AHLI was reborn as A.H. Lundberg Associates, Inc. (AHLA) and LAEL reincorporated as A.H. Lundberg Equipment Ltd. (AHLEL). A new Lundberg company was opened in Austria to serve the Eastern Europe market and the office in Portugal was relocated to Belgium.

Elmer Guthrie, joined Lundberg in 1975 as a project manager.  Bruce Beckstrom began as the Technical Director in 1977, continuing the technical innovation focus of the company. Rudi Miksa was hired as the South Regional Sales Manager in 1981, while Carl Smith was brought on in 1982 as the Southeast Regional Sales Manager. Both were well known in the industry in their regions, and together with Guthrie and Beckstrom were instrumental in the growth of the company throughout the United States.

The partnerships with the European Lundberg companies were dissolved, leaving only the offices in Washington State and British Columbia. As Lundberg went on to pursue other opportunities,  Guthrie was named president of AHLA. Guthrie would lead AHLA through the 1980s and ’90s. This period saw a significant increase in environmental regulation in the United States, particularly at the state level. Another change in the business environment in the industry was a move toward vendor-led turnkey, or EPC, contracts. Lundberg was quite successful with environmental projects, and this success, together with success with EPC contracts, led to a significant amount of growth during this period. Guthrie retired 1999, and Joe Fedler was named the company president.

In 2002, Lundberg acquired the intellectual property of Geoenergy International Corporation, which designed and supplied environmental control systems to a variety of industries. The primary products included the Wet Electrostatic Precipitator (Wet ESP) and Regenerative Thermal/Catalytic Oxidizer (RTO/RCO). Along with the acquisition of Geoenergy’s technology, Lundberg also brought on board the company’s former principals, Steve Jaasund and Gary Raemhild, as well as several other former employees. The Geoenergy products would go on to become important additions to Lundberg’s line of environmental control products. The year 2003 saw Lundberg re-enter the European market with the launch of A.H. Lundberg Systems, S.L., located in Bilbao, Spain. Together with the extensive representative network, Lundberg was conducting business in the pulp and paper industry in virtually every part of the world. In 2004, Fedler retired as president, maintained his role as company chairman. Beckstrom took over as president, using his technical knowledge and industry contacts to continue to grow the company until his retirement in 2009.