Barbara Barrett has already lived a very full life.
She's rubbed elbows with the Dalai Lama, trained to be an astronaut, served as U.S. Ambassador to Finland and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
But growing up, she had a much different vision for her life. While sitting on a tractor her father was working on, a neighbor asked about her future plans.
“I was already conditioned to know I had three options: As a girl, I could be a teacher, a secretary or a nurse,” Barrett told ABC15.
But Barrett’s dad encouraged her not to settle.
“He just said matter of factly, ‘Why not a doctor?’ And that lifted my sights. That took me from thinking I have three options to thinking, ‘oh I’m a girl but I could be a doctor and that changed everything," she explained.
Barrett’s dad died when she was young.
“When I was 13 I was supporting a family of six kids and my mother,” Barrett recalled.
She moved to the Valley to attend Arizona State University – still needing to support her family.
She juggled as many as five jobs while attending classes before heading to ASU law school.
While in school, Barrett landed an internship at the Arizona Capitol where she helped write the bill that created ADOT, the Arizona Department of Transportation.
After graduation, she worked as an attorney and began to fulfill one of her primary passions - aviation.
In 1982 she became vice chairman of the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board and was tasked with closing that agency and restructuring its assignments.
“I never asked for a job in the government, but I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve done,” she said.
She was eventually nominated by President Ronald Reagan to be the first female deputy director of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“We had a president that took a chance,” she said. “He took a chance on a young student that he thought might be able to do the job.”
In the 90s, Barrett – by then an accomplished pilot herself - fought to end laws that prohibited women in the armed services from flying bombers or fighter jets.
“If we are in a battle we want the very best people in the cockpit, not by gender but by capability,” Barrett said.
Today there are women flying fighters and bombers around the globe, including right down the road at Luke Air Force Base where Barrett recently met an F35 squadron commander.
“She is a graduate of the Air Force Academy whose mother also graduated from USAFA,” Barrett said. “[the mother] was precluded from flying fighters or bombers. She flew tankers, but her daughter is now flying fighters.”
Soon after, Barrett became the first Republican woman to run for Governor of Arizona.
Barrett went on to serve as secretary of the Air Force from 2019 to 2021 - shepherding the creation of the Space Force.
She hopes the next generation of leaders can borrow from her life philosophy.
“Work well with others, learn as much as you can and be interested in the outcomes,” Barrett said. “Be interested in making good things happen and think in the long term.”
Barrett and her husband still live in Paradise Valley. The Barrett Honors College at ASU is named after the pair.
