Nils Henrik Bruun was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

.

Educated at Chalmerska in Gothenburg, and in Germany, Brunn moved to Bergen in 1963 where he engaged in several engineering ventures; he and Peter Jebsen

Peter Jebsen

Peter Jebsen was a Norwegian businessperson and politician.After working in the cloth industry for a relative in Hamburg, he moved to Bergen in 1843, bought a river in Arna for 200 specidaler borrowed money and started manufacturing cloth; as one of the first manufactures in the country, profits...

 founded the factories in Dale

Dale, Hordaland

Dale is the administrative centre of Vaksdal municipality, Norway. Its population is 1,159 ....

, and later he engages in mining in Stord

Stord

Stord is a municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. Stord is sometimes called "Norway in miniature" - as it has such a variety of landscapes: coastline, fjords, forests, agricultural land, and mountain areas....

 and Karmøy

Karmøy

Karmøy is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. It is located southwest of the city of Haugesund in the traditional district of Haugaland....

. He received the contract to build the tunnels on Vossebanen in 1875. During the 1880s he was director of Bergen Mekaniske Verksted

Bergen Mekaniske Verksted

Bergen Mekaniske Verksted, later Bergens Mekaniske Verksteder, was a shipyard in Solheimsviken in Bergen, Norway. Established in 1855, it later also built a drydock in Laksevåg. The company folded in 1991, but the yard in Laksevåg is still in use....

, and in 1898 he bought half the rights to the waterfalls in Øvre Årdal

Øvre Årdal

Øvre Årdal is a village in the municipality of Årdal in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It is the larger of the two primary villages in Årdal. The village is situated at the northern end of the long lake Årdalsvatnet, with the village of Årdalstangen at the southern end...

, selling them to BASF

BASF

BASF SE is the largest chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Germany. BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik . Today, the four letters are a registered trademark and the company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock...

 in 1906. He was awarded the Order of St. Olav in 1894.