NAFA Honors Burroughs for Contributions to Filtration and Air Cleaning Industry
H. E. “Barney” Burroughs was presented with the National Air Filtration Association’s (NAFA) Lifetime Achievement Award by Chris Zaker, incoming NAFA president, at the organization’s annual conference. Burroughs has been in the filtration and air cleaning industry since 1965 when he took over the market development project at the Marbon Chemical Division of Borg-Warner to introduce a new patented gas phase sorbent developed at York, which he helped name Purafil. Two years later, he started his rep firm in Atlanta, H. E. Burroughs and Associates, which later became Filtration Engineering Inc. He represented Purafil, as well as Flanders and Roto-Aire (a spin-off of Farr) in the southeastern states with an office in Puerto Rico, as well.
In 1969, he acquired the Purafil patent and related business from Borg-Warner and founded Purafil Inc. He led Purafil to become an international leader in gaseous filtration and protection of equipment, components, occupants, documents, and objects d’art from contaminants of hostile environments. After being acquired by the Larkin Group in 1986, Burroughs left Purafil to take a leadership role in ASHRAE, where he was elected president in 1987.