Mr. Barber is currently the Chief Analyst and Fellow for Operations Analysis for Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. (SPA), responsible for oversight of the company’s analytic work for the U.S. and Australian militaries. He retired from the Navy in 2014 and joined SPA after 41 years of Navy service, 28 as an officer and 13 as a Senior Executive Service civilian. 25 of those years of service were spent in the Pentagon, 22 of which were on the Navy staff (OPNAV), and all of which involved program, budget, capability, and force structure analysis.
Mr. Barber graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics, receiving a U.S. Navy commission from the Reserve Officer Training Corps unit there. He received a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (with distinction) and an additional subspecialty in weapons system engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a graduate of the Army War College and the MIT Seminar 21 Program in International Politics.
Mr. Barber served on active duty in the Navy for 28 years, retiring as a Captain. His sea assignments included service at all levels in destroyers including command of USS DEYO (DD 989). He also commanded Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek and Naval Station Norfolk.
Mr. Barber’s years in the Pentagon included participation in every DOD quadrennial defense strategy review and program review between 1990 and 2014. He served as a weapons program analyst in the Navy Programming Division (N80), a defense-wide program and budget analyst in the Joint Staff (J-8), and as the integration branch head in the Assessment Division (N81). He also served as Executive Assistant to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations and as Deputy Director of the Navy team for the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review. He became a civilian and a member of the Navy Senior Executive Service in 2002 as the Director of the Analysis, Programming, and Integration Division (N70), and then served as Deputy Director of the Assessment Division (N81). In that role as the Navy’s chief analyst from 2004 until his retirement from civilian service in June, 2014 he was responsible for developing and managing the Navy’s central corporate analytic program of 150 studies per year on every dimension of Navy capability and program, leading an analytic staff of 100 military and civilians, conducting the Navy’s force structure assessments, and briefing summary estimates of Navy capability status and force structure requirements to the CNO, Secretary of the Navy, and other senior defense leaders.
Mr. Barber’s Navy decorations include both the Navy and the Defense Department Distinguished Civilian Service Awards, the Presidential Rank Award (Meritorious) for Senior Executives, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, and the Legion of Merit (two awards). He is a Fellow of the Military Operations Research Society and the 2024 recipient of their Vance Wanner Award for distinguished achievement in the field of military operations analysis.
