BIO

Foreign Service Officer, United States Department of State, 1990 to 2004. Assignments included tours in U.S. embassies and consulates in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Algiers, Algeria; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Tunis, Tunisia; and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Washington, D.C. tours included assignments in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Published articles include: "French Diary" published in State Department Magazine, December, 1996; "Bringing In The Kingdom With 51 Percent" published in Liberty Magazine, November, 2005 (www.libertymagazine.org/index.php?id=1342 ); "Jeddah and the 1991 Gulf War" appeared on web site American Diplomacy in March, 2006 (www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2006/0103/life/firstpost_obarrbre.html).

Before joining the State Department, computer programmer for the Coca Cola Company, then a historic preservation planner for a regional planning agency. Received A.B. in journalism from Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, and M.A. in geography from Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia.