Work Overview

Work was hard, yet exciting - I feel like I made a difference... but if I had it to do over again, I'd be far less intense, work far fewer hours, worry a lot less, take things more as they come, and spend more time with my wife and family.

Career Overview – Executive / Entrepreneur / Consultant

CONSULTANT (1981-91): Founded two firms (Leadership Growth, Inc. and Barry Barnes & Co.) that worked with CEO's & officers of about 45 fast-growth, high-tech, and a dozen multi-national firms in the areas of growth strategies, executive teamwork, organizational effectiveness, conflict resolution, inter-functional cooperation, product development process optimization, and leadership skills. Co-founded another (The Barnes & Senne Group) that worked with sales managers & senior solutions salespeople for optimizing high-performance selling skills with high tech and banking clients, often achieving extreme results (1,710% quarterly improvement in one case with 80+ Wells Fargo districts).

ENTREPRENEUR (1964-83): Founded, co-founded, co-launched 13 companies in the fields of computer hardware, systems consulting, software, publishing, survey-research, advertising & promotion, energy, residential construction, and furniture manufacturing.

EXECUTIVE (1966-81): Executive at many of above companies and other organizations. Held positions of Director of Research, Director of Data Systems, Regional Sales Manager, Regional Manager, Vice President of Business Development, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer, Vice President of R&D, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Executive Officer, Board Member, Board Chair.

EARLY CAREER (1964 - late1969): Spent first few years of career as: Psychological Counselor for a regional mental health center; Director of Research & Evaluation for a medium-large public school system; and Director of Data Systems for a huge public school district (130,000 students, 15,000 employees).

Career Description – First to Last Order

High School & College Work

STARTED WORKING, as was the case of many teenagers back in the 1950's, when I was 14 and worked around 30 hours per week throughout high school.

WORKED 30 to 40 hours per week selling men's suits while operating a small, profitable business building furniture.

ACADEMIC LOAD was quite heavy during college. 

Psychological Counselor, Shreveport Regional Mental Health Center

STARTED professional career in 1964 (during college) working for the Shreveport Child Guidance Center - which became part of the Shreveport Regional Mental Health Center while working there - providing individual therapy to emotionally disturbed children.

WORKED as a social therapist for two years in an internship program usually requiring a master's degree in social work.

Also SERVED as Psychiatric Staffing Council Member of confederate memorial hospital in Shreveport, LA.

Owner, Barry Barnes Custom Furniture

OPERATED this business during three years of college and for one year after.  Designed & built custom hardwood furniture for living rooms and bedrooms and built sound columns for churches, night clubs, and auditoriums.

This part-time business SUPPORTED paying tuition to an expensive college, buying a new home and car, and supporting a wife and child.

Director of Research & Evaluation, Bossier Parish Public Schools

RESEARCHED new educational opportunities for potential district-wide implementation.

RESPONSIBLE for “innovative and exemplary” educational programs.

RESEARCHED, WROTE PROPOSAL, HELPED NEGOTIATE, and LAUNCHED regional cooperative educational services center for 12 school systems serving 150,000 students in areas of educational TV, computer-assisted instruction, administrative computer services, special education, curriculum development, & educational media.

REWARDED largest grant funding in the nation in 1967 for programs under Title III of the U.S. Elementary & Secondary Education Act of 1965, targeted to identify and fund the nation’s best “innovative and exemplary” programs.

WROTE PROPOSALS resulting in funded programs for cultural enrichment & pre-school training for disadvantaged children.

DIRECTED one of first voluntarily-racially-integrated public school programs in the South. 

Director of Data Systems, Montgomery County Public Schools

DIRECTED 24/7 operations for large computer center for this 15,000 employee / 130,000 student public school district in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC.  

MANAGED SERVICES in the areas of: Finance, payroll, warehouse operations, transportation, construction management, maintenance management, class scheduling, student records management, financial modeling, human resources, heuristic modeling, computer-aided learning, and many others.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Achieved major growth in service areas; implemented many new systems implemented several new technologies; vastly improved overall effectiveness; achieved major reductions in operating costs; managed transition from older computers to, at that time, “state of the art” model; made us one of the most productive computer centers in the Washington DC area.

Regional Manager / Executive Team Member / Stockholder, NCS, Inc.

INDUSTRY:  Intelligent computer optical scanning systems and survey/research services

OVERVIEW: One of first 20 employees; helped design & launch first standard product; grew & managed largest region; key contributor for rapid company growth.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: "User representative" on new product development team (new product resulted in growth from eight customers to thousands in just few years); developed part of the marketing programs and literature; developed a new region from scratch which sold 60% of company's total revenues; organized firm's Users' Group; published firm's Customer Newsletter; represented NCS at numerous trade shows, users groups, & professional associations. When NCS had 8 customers, its competitor had 11,000; NCS ended up acquiring the competitor in three years.

SYSTEMS CUSTOMERS: Sold large-scale computerized "intelligent" optical scanning systems to huge school districts and regional educational service centers, numerous universities, governmental agencies, others.

SERVICES CUSTOMERS: Conducted huge surveys for such organizations as the Institute of Social Research, the Democratic Party, American Council on Education, U.S. Navy Research Center, many universities and governmental agencies, many others; the company's service bureau also supported 100's of major survey developers and 10,000+ independent psychologists & psychiatrists.

POSITIONS HELD: Southern Regional Sales Manager, Southern Regional Manager (14 states); Corporate Executive Team Member.

Founder / Co-Founder / Officer / Stockholder, Various Companies

Chief Marketing & Sales Executive, Major Stakeholder,

Smith, Dennis & Gaylord, Inc.

 (Later: SD&G Inc, Soloman Brothers, Microsoft, ADAC Laboratories)

JOINED this Silicon Valley software firm when it had 19 employees; was primarily a custom software firm attempting to enter the standard software products business.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Developed company infrastructure for rapid growth; launched seven major software products in 18 months (order management, marketing, financial, process manufacturing, computer software engineering, & medical management systems); re-positioned company to work with large multi-national clients; developed marketing systems, produced structured contract system, implemented highly-effective sales model, grew revenues 400%; established numerous sub-licensors in U.S. & Europe; facilitated acquisition efforts.

CLIENTS: ARGOSystems, Baker International, Dreyers Grand Ice Cream, Finnigan, Monolithic Memories, Roundtable Pizza, Seagate Technologies, Shell Oil of the U.K., The Sierra Club, SmithKline Pharmaceuticals, many others.

MAIN BUSINESS ACQUIRED by Solomon Brothers, then Microsoft; still an integral operational unit in Bellevue, WA.

HEALTHCARE DIVISION spun into SD&G Health Systems, Inc.; acquired by ADAC Laboratories.

RECOMMENDATION:Barry has 1 recommendation (1 manager) including:  Steve Dennis, Former CEO, Smith, Dennis & Gaylord, Inc.

President & Chief Consultant, Leadership Growth, Inc.

INCORPORATED Barry Barnes & Co., changing name to reflect focus on executive leadership & corporate growth issues.

WORKED with CEO's, officers, & senior management teams on:

   -  Rapid-Growth Planning & Management
   -  Strategic Growth Issues
   -  Executive Team-Building
   -  Conflict-Resolution
   -  Critical Issues Resolution
   -  Inter-Functional Cooperation
   -  Executive Leadership Skills

SUPPORTED clients in extreme growth, often resulting in 1000% growth in three years (written up in Fortune Magazine for helping one firm grow from $36 to $360 million per year); often worked many concurrent engagements with each client, usually for several years in a row.

CLIENTS included Aristacomm, Consilium, Fujitsu (2 USA divisions and Fujitsu Japan), Ross Systems, Sybase, Tri-Steel Structures Inc., Ungermann-Bass (subsidiary of Compaq), numerous others.