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The formula for the highly successful show includes a dash of home-improvement, a dose of demolition, a celebrity cameo or two, a lot of up-close-and-personal moments, and, at the end, the Big Reveal, when the family returns for the unveiling of the new home. Like a number of other reality TV shows, this one has also raised screaming for joy to the level of an Olympic sport.

UNH students unload bottled drinks before peeling off the labels. Top photo, facing page: UNH student volunteers pose for a photo.

As soon as Bauer and his partner had accepted ABC's invitation to orchestrate "the build" for the Marshall family, the clock started ticking. Bauer, who earned a degree in civil technology from UNH's Thompson School of Applied Science, has three decades of experience in the construction business, and Trumbull-Nelson, with about 100 employees, is used to large jobs. This one, however, was unlike any other. In addition to the construction itself, the company was responsible for soliciting, scheduling and coordinating all the donations of supplies and skilled labor, ranging from architectural design to sheetrocking. There were also thousands of unskilled volunteers and onlookers to manage.

A 30-day schedule for the project soon filled an entire wall of the company's training room, and for the construction week itself, every hour was detailed. Since the house was located on a single-lane road, deliveries had to be carefully choreographed. The pre-construction work, says Bauer, was actually more crucial than the construction. (In fact, the pre-construction was the construction for components like wall panels, which were not only prefabricated but also pre-insulated and pre-wired.)

On Sept. 28, videotaping at the site began when the Marshalls were officially informed of their good fortune with the so-called "door knock." Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, Pennington ran up to the house with a bullhorn. With his spiky hair literally standing on end, he yelled at the top of his lungs: "Good morning, Marshall family!! Jay, Elena, kids, come on out!" The family burst out of their house, screaming and hugging every crew member in sight.

Bauer made his first videotaped appearance on Day 2, when a couple hundred volunteers in hardhats marched up the road to the Marshalls' house, led by Bauer and his partner in front of a Trumbull-Nelson banner. Tears flowed freely as the family recognized faces from the town and the hospital. Even Bauer teared up a bit as he told the family, "We've assembled a lot of good people here who can't wait to get started, and I can't wait to see the expressions on your family's faces when we finish building this beautiful home together."

Roughly chiseled and clean-cut, Bauer fit the role of white knight in hardhat perfectly. But his words came from the heart. To his surprise, none of his videotaped encounters with the celebrity hosts was scripted. And all that screaming, he's convinced, was as spontaneous as the tears. "They wanted to scream," he says.

This initial show of force by the advance troops of volunteers in hardhats is known as the Braveheart March. The allusion to epic medieval Scottish battles may seem like a stretch, and yet there was something epic about the effort that was about to begin. Ultimately, more than 2,000 volunteers would work on the home, including nearly 200 skilled tradesmen and women. Many worked normal jobs by day and volunteered at night. Some traveled from afar—one woman was on her fourth Makeover project in a row—and slept in their cars. Or not. One of Bauer's superintendents was so dedicated that he had to be ordered to go sleep; after 36 hours on the job, it just wasn't safe to keep going.

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