At its June 2024 meeting, the Gettysburg Foundation Board of Directors welcomed one new Director. Gene Barr joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors for a three-year term.
Barr is the retired president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, the largest broad-based business advocacy group in Pennsylvania. He joined the Chamber in 2003, became president in 2011, and retired at the end of 2022. He has more than 45 years of experience in politics, government affairs, public policy, and business operations, including work with BP America, Associated Petroleum Industries of PA, Triad Strategies, and the Harrisburg law firm of McNees Wallace & Nurick. Barr is now a Senior Advisor to GSL Public Strategies.
He served three terms on the US Chamber Board of Directors where he served on the Nominating and Governance Committee, as well as the Chamber’s Political Advocacy Committee. He has served on numerous boards, including the United Way and the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Barr has been named to various state commissions by both Republican and Democrat governors, including co-chair of Governor Tom Wolf’s Keystone Workforce Command Center and worked on the transition team for Governor Tom Corbett. He is on the executive committee of PA 250 and the board of the Foundation for Free Enterprise Education. He was appointed to the Early Learning Investment Commission by former Governor Ed Rendell and now serves on the Emeritus Advisory Council.
Barr ranked number nine on the 2022 City and State PA’s Power 100 list of the most influential people in the public and private sectors statewide. He was also named by his peers as “The Most Effective Association Lobbyist” in the Capitol in a poll conducted by the Pennsylvania Legislative Services and was included in the Pennlive/Patriot-News list of the 17 most influential people in Pennsylvania politics in 2017.
He is the author of a non-fiction work on the American Civil War, A Civil War Captain and His Lady: Love, Courtship, and Combat from Fort Donelson through the Vicksburg Campaign.
Barr is a graduate of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and received a Certificate in Leadership Development as a participant in the 2017 National Security Seminar at the U.S. Army War College. He currently serves on the faculty for the Gettysburg Foundation’s Higher Ground Leadership at Gettysburg programming.
The Gettysburg Foundation is the official non-profit partner of Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site. Members of the Gettysburg Foundation Board of Directors serve a three-year term and are eligible to serve for three consecutive terms.