Barbara Barrett is a business and aviation attorney, President of Triple Creek Guest Ranch, serves on the corporate boards of Raytheon and Exponent and chairs the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. She serves as a member of the US-Afghan Women's Council and the Defense Business Board. Mrs. Barrett served as Vice Chairman of the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board, Deputy Administrator of the FAA, founding Chairman of Valley Bank of Arizona and President and CEO of the American Management Association. She also served as the President of the International Women's Forum and the Arizona World Affairs Council. She was National Chairman of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce's Export Conference and Chairman of the Arizona World Trade Association and the Arizona District Export Council.

In addition to serving as a member of the Senior Advisory Board at Harvard's Institute of Politics, she was Chairman of the Board of Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, the Ronald Reagan Scholarship, the National Academic Decathlon competition and Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation.

Mrs. Barrett is the first Republican woman to run for Governor of Arizona and the first civilian woman to land in an F/A-18 Hornet on an aircraft carrier. In July 2003, President Bush announced his intent that she would be the next Secretary of the Air Force. She received the Horatio Alger Award.

Mrs. Barrett and her husband, Craig, live in Paradise Valley, Arizona.