Barron retired from the Army in 2010 after a 30-year career as an airborne-ranger infantry officer and military strategist. During his professional military career, he served in leadership positions at all levels, from tactical through strategic. He is a decorated combat veteran of operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Barron's last active duty assignment was as special assistant to the secretary of the Army. Prior to that, he served two tours with the Joint Staff, including four years as the assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Legislative Affairs. He also served as an infantry battalion commander, as Army liaison to the U.S. Senate, and as a congressional fellow for then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s. Earlier in his career, Barron commanded an infantry company, served as an exchange officer with the British Army's elite parachute regiment and was an instructor and assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and then served as the aide de camp to the superintendent of the academy.

After retiring from active duty, he was an executive with the Boeing Co., working in its Washington, D.C., government operations office, first as director of Government Affairs and then as director of International Operations and Policy.

Barron graduated as an ROTC distinguished military graduate, from the University of San Francisco, and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U. S. Army War College. He holds advanced degrees in leadership from the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; in government from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; in public administration from the City University of New York; and in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pa. He graduated from the Senior Executives in National and International Security program and the Advanced Management program for Senior Managers in Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. He has been published in professional military journals and was a national security fellow with the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

He joined MOAA's Government Relations Department in April 2013 and specializes in defense policy, active duty compensation, and retirement issues.

 

Positions Held at MOAA:

• Director (Currently Serving/Retired Affairs)