COL Barnard is a native of Nashville, Tennessee. He initially served as an enlisted Sailor in the U.S. Navy from 1985-89. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry from the Army ROTC program at Indiana University at Bloomington in 1996.
COL Barnard’s basic Army branch is Armor. In 2008, he became an Army Foreign Area Officer (FAO) specializing in Eurasian affairs and speaks Russian. As a FAO, he has served at U.S. Embassy Tashkent, in G-3/5/7 of Headquarters Department of the Army, in CCJ5-Security Cooperation at U.S. Central Command, and at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. As a FAO, he has worked in joint, interagency, and multinational environments specializing in security cooperation, political-military affairs advising, intelligence, U.S. security policy, military treaty compliance, and irregular warfare capacity building. His academic focus areas include Russian and Central Asian affairs, strategic arms control, and nuclear triad modernization.
COL Barnard has served combat tours in Iraq (2007-08) and Afghanistan (2021) as well as operational tours in the Middle East, Central Asia, and in the Republic of Korea. His awards include the Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal with “C” device, Navy Expeditionary Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, and Expert Infantryman’s Badge.
COL Barnard earned an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts in College Scholars from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville as well possesses a Master of Arts from Indiana University at Bloomington and Master of Science from National Defense University. He is 2021 graduate of the Eisenhower School.
He is married to the beautiful Jennifer G. Barnard and has five school-age children.