Repurposing the Past: How a Former Farm Boy and Marine Helped Give Bucks County a 21st-Century Facelift. This item is unavailable.Repurposing the Past: How a Former Farm Boy and Marine Helped Give Bucks County a 21st-Century Facelift

Nazi Submarines? Life-and-death battles with huge rats?

The Cuban Missile Crisis? The assassination of JFK?

These are not the predictable topics you’d typically associate with a book that appears to be about cleaning up toxic, abandoned industrial sites, urban redevelopment, economic growth, and job creation. But if your name is Bob White, they’re all part of an improbable journey from naive farm boy, to Cold War-era U.S. Marine, to the executive directorship of the Redevelopment Authority of the County of Bucks.

He’s been referred to as “a beefy, fast-talking construction expert,” a “larger-than-life visionary,” “a superstar in economic development,” and numerous other glowing accolades by Bucks County’s press, politicians, and redevelopment and real estate industry executives.

There’s good reason for that: During Bob White’s tenure at the helm of Bucks County’s Redevelopment Authority, more than 50 large-scale, transformative projects were completed and over 20,000 jobs were saved or generated in the process. Dozens of environmentally contaminated, blighted buildings—relics from the county’s past glory years as a major East Coast manufacturing center—were replaced by beautiful parks, sparkling office complexes, research centers, upscale residential communities, new roadways, and a thriving deepwater port.

Repurposing the Past is HGTV on an industrial scale. In addition to Bob’s unique and inspiring story, this new and unique book gives you a ringside seat to several dozen of his most significant, far-reaching projects. More than 80 photos provide a before and after look at each site, along with a narrative depicting its history, the environmental challenges and remediations involved, and the demolitions, budgets, grants, redevelopment plans, and community and political participation that helped Bucks County boldly step into the 21st century.

Whether you’re a student or a professional in the fields of environmental sciences, economic development, and urban studies, or you’re simply looking to read a unique, inspiring story, Repurposing the Past will prove to be a page turner.

Bob White spent the first 18 years of his life toiling on his grandfather's farm in Bucks County, PA. Tired of baling hay and milking cows at 4:45 a.m., he traded in his pitchfork and scythe for a crew cut and an M-1 rifle when he joined the U.S. Marines in May of 1959. During his six-year stint in the service, Bob spent the Cold War years on several tours in the Mediterranean and at Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Back home, he stood guard duty at Camp David whenever President Kennedy was there on weekends, and tragically, he was also involved in scheduling the military honors for JFK's funeral. Returning to civilian life in Bucks County in 1965, Bob spent years in the construction business before ascending to the executive directorship of the Redevelopment Authority of the County of Bucks. Over a 24 year period, he transformed a county littered with dozens of toxic, abandoned industrial sites-remnants of the county's rich manufacturing past-into beautiful parks, upscale residential housing communities, sparkling office complexes, and a thriving deepwater port on the Delaware River. He has been hailed as an economic and environmental visionary throughout the county.

Allan Slutsky is a Grammy award-winning musician, author, and film and record producer whose books include Bobby Rydell: Teen Idol on the Rocks, The Funkmasters: The Great James Brown Rhythm Sections 1960-1973, and Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson. In 1989, Standing in the Shadows of Motown won the Rolling Stone/BMI Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and was the basis for a 2002 motion picture of the same title that Allan co-produced. In 2003, it received Best Non-Fiction Film awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle and earned Allan the Recording Academy's "Heroes Award" in 2004. Allan has also played over four dozen major Broadway shows including Hamilton, Chicago, Dreamgirls, Mama Mia, the Book of Mormon, the Color Purple, and Mean Girls, and was a staff arranger for American Idol for five seasons. He currently is a member of the music faculty at Stock University in Galloway, New Jersey