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Today's Featured Biography
Brita Mornestam Barber
After graduating from LA High School I attended the University of Puget Sound for three years. I married Steven Green in 1965 and moved to Nebraska where he attended graduate school. Steve taught Spanish, and after graduate school we also spent two years in Mexico. We ultimately settled in Silverdale, WA where he taught high school Spanish. During this period we raised four daughters. I graduated from nursing school and worked for a number of years at Harrison Hospital in Bremerton, WA as an Orthopedic nurse. Steve and I were divorced in 1985, and three years later I met my current husband, Jim Barber. Jim worked for the Navy in the Puget Sound area as the civilian leader of US Navy Procurement in the Northwest. We were married in 1989. Jim has two children from a prior marriage.
In 1990 Jim and I moved to North Carolina. Jim was Director of Procurement for the Coast Guard aviation facility there, and I continued my nursing career at a local clinic, specializing in hemodialysis. In 1992 Jim accepted an assignment in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as the Administrative Contracting Officer for the Royal Saudi Army Aviation Program. I worked as a nurse for King Khalid University Hospital. Most of our children were grown by this time, but two of them were with us. Both graduated from the Bahrain International School in Manama, Bahrain. In 1993 Jim accepted a position with the Internal Revenue Service in Maryland. He was a GS-15 Procurement Officer and led a program helping to modernize IRS information technology. In 1997/98 we again took an assignment in Saudi Arabia, this time with the defense contractor, General Dynamics. I worked for the Rashid Al Omron Compound clinic outside Riyadh. In 1998 we returned to Maryland. Jim returned to his prior position with the IRS, and I ultimately left nursing to work for the Drug Enforcement Administration processing drug information and handling evidence.
In 2007 Jim and I both retired from federal service. We moved to North Carolina to a log home on High Rock Lake near Lexington. The house turned out to be “beautiful disaster,” with so many construction mistakes that we soon just wanted out of it. So after only a year we sold it and moved an hour north to Mebane, NC which is near Chapel Hill and Durham. And then finally we made another move, hopefully the last one for a while, to Green Cove Springs, FL, which is near Jacksonville. We found a beautiful home on a small lake in what is known as Magnolia Point Golf and Country Club. I am fully retired, but Jim continues to work. He is the Director of Contracts for Information Systems Consulting Group, Inc. of Fredericksburg, VA. He can do most of his work from home through conference calls and email, but he does have to travel some. And this gives us an excuse to visit children, several of whom are in or near Washington, DC.
Our children are all married and most have children of their own. My oldest, Lisa, is a store manager in Soldotna, AK and has two boys. My next, Chrystal, is married, an Occupational Therapist supervisor, and lives in Waldorf, MD She has two boys and a girl. Margarita is married and has two boys, one a newborn. She is a nurse for the VA and lives in Kearneysville, WV. Kristina, my youngest, is married with no children yet. She is a furniture fabric designer and works for two companies, one in China and one in North Carolina. She lives in Asheville, NC.
Jim’s oldest, Steve, is married and lives in Charlottesville, VA. He is a partner in a structural engineering firm. They have two boys. And Jim’s youngest, Laura, is married, works as a computer systems analyst for SAS Software in Raleigh, NC, and has two children, a boy and girl.
Today I am active in the Master Gardener program and working on transferring that from North Carolina to Florida. I love gardening and expect to thrive on the long growing season and all of the plant life that is around us in Florida. Jim and I love to travel and, since he works at home and on the computer most of the time, we can spend our time most anywhere. Although North Florida is now our home base, we intend to travel frequently and spend much of the summer months in Washington State near our former home. We also have a time share in Carlsbad, CA, not too far from LA.
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