Hans Budde
Hans Budde - First Chairman of the Board from 1977 to 1995

Stormy Beginnings
On the 7th of March 1977 not only was BORDA founded at a meeting of ten members in the Übersee-Museum but it was also the place where all general meetings were held until 1998. The museum at the Bahnhofsplatz, moreover, “provisionally” provided rooms for the management of the new non-profit association. Under the chairmanship of architect Hans Budde, BORDA began to fulfil the association’s declared purpose and set up a research centre. However, unlike the Chamber of Architects, the Association of the Construction Industry and the Sparkasse, the Bremen Chamber of Commerce and some of the large companies approached were very reluctant to support the new development cooperation organisation. For this reason, Gunther Hilliges in particular, who became head of the new ” Landesamt für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit“ (State Office for Development Cooperation) (LafEZ) in 1979, endeavoured to obtain funding from both the state and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in Bonn. Professor Thormann continued to work on his “International Training Centre” for architects and even cancelled a state press conference with Mayor Koschnick to present BORDA by announcing his project ideas and BORDA’s foundation in the “Bremer Nachrichten” three days earlier.
However, the newly elected first chairman, the architect Hans Budde, managed to moderate both the stormy early years and the later years of crisis in an objective and committed manner for 18 years (until 1995). As a prime example of a philanthropically-minded Bremen citizen, Budde was well-connected and generally recognised in Bremen through his involvement in the “Aufbaugemeinschaft”, an initiative founded in 1945 by business people and urban planners to rebuild Bremen’s city centre, and in the “Bremer Eiswette”. The spirit of optimism among the 15 or so members of the association did not fade even after the founding phase. Full of energy, contacts were made: from the “Bremen Committee for Economic Research” to the Federal Minister of Construction Ravens and the “Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development” in order to publicise BORDA and to obtain projects and thus financial support. Still without its own staff, the Übersee-Museum initially took over the management of BORDA and set up its own office in return for an “appropriate fee”. Hans Budde did not stand for re-election in 1995, whereupon tea merchant Arend Vollers was elected as the new First Chairman.