Look and Listen

Biography

F. Eugene Barber was born on a sharecrop farm in the Midwest at the start of the Great Depression and first attended a one-room rural school with ten other students ranging from the first to the eighth grades. He worked on farms and ranches until joining the Air Force at the age of seventeen just after graduating from high school. During the Korean War, he was an engine mechanic and Crew Chief on the atomic bomb carrying B-36. He later used the GI Bill to earn an AS in Engineering, a BA, and an MBA. Mr. Barber has worked and traveled around the world—North, South, and Central America, the UK, Europe, Polynesia, Russia and Russian Siberia, Finland, South Africa, China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Turkey, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has worked in the Aerospace industry most of his adult life and now consults on FAA and DOD projects. Mr. Barber’s most recent project was two years at the Birk Flight Test Center on Edwards AFB in California and he is now consulting in Minnesota. He and his wife lived for a time in Yorkshire, England near a joint forces base. He has held a Nevada Broker/Salesman Real Estate License since 1993. He and his wife live in Nevada.

Inspiration

I was inspired by a couple of things. The first was when our youngest daughter, Janet, read my Master's thesis years ago. She said, "Dad, it reads like a travelog." And the second was when I bought Zane Grey's collection of western novels. I read some of his early ones and remarked, "Shoot! I can write better than some of these old ones. They are really corny."