Barney Visser

After attending Denver Christian High School for three years, Visser graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Denver. He volunteered in the Vietnam War for 21 months after high school, and he served as a paratrooper for 11 months in the 173rd Airborne Brigade between July 1968 and June 1969. Visser and his wife Carolyn have seven children. ==Furniture==

Visser began his business manufacturing big poof pillows in the 1970s. He owned eight stores called Pillow Kingdom in 1977, when he decided to start his first waterbed store called Big Sur Waterbeds. That company was so successful that he changed the whole company into waterbed stores. He estimates that the company held 85 stores in the mid-1980s. The Furniture Row company operates 330 stores in 31 states under the Denver Mattress and Furniture Row names. ==Racing==

Visser decided to retire from his businesses, and began racing at Colorado National Speedway as a hobby. Visser's NASCAR team began running in 2005, Joe Nemechek earned the team's first pole position at the spring Talladega Superspeedway race in 2008. Martin Truex Jr. won the team's first NASCAR Cup series title in 2017. On September 4, 2018, Barney Visser announced that with the loss of major sponsor 5-hour Energy and the increasing cost to maintain a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing (300% Increase), he had no choice but to announce that the team would cease operation at the end of the 2018 season, one year after winning their first championship title. This is also because Visser has been dealing with health problems. After Racing After shutting down the team, Visser had to sell his NASCAR charter, as per NASCAR rules. Visser went to motorsports/entertainment agency, Spire Sports + Entertainment seeking to sell his charter, and suggested to Spire president Ty Norris to buy the charter (the most expensive one in NASCAR history) and start a new Cup Series team. The agency accepted, purchasing the #78 charter. The team would be partnered with Premium Motorsports and would later win a shocking victory in their first season at Daytona with Justin Haley. In 2020, the No. 78 was brought back into NASCAR by the rise of B. J. McLeod Motorsports. Later, McLeod and Matt Tifft started their own Cup Series team. ==Media==

He is the co-author of the book Vietnam: Fresh, Positive Insights for all who Suffered Loss in the Vietnam War () in November 2000. ==References==