Committees: Programs Committee
Colonel Catherine D. Barker was born in Austin, Texas and holds a double Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry and Zoology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was commissioned in 1981 as an Adjutant. Her company grade assignments included billets as a Platoon Commander and Adjutant with 3d Marine Division in Okinawa, and as Series Commander, S-3A, and Company Commander at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island. In 1991, she was mobilized in support of Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM as the Logistics Officer for the Los Angeles, California, Marine Corps Mobilization Station, Marine Corps Reserve Support Command.
As a Major, she served with the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Staff Training Program Reserve Detachment in Quantico, VA, and with both I and II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) Augmentation Command Elements (MACEs) at Camp Lejeune, NC and Camp Pendleton, CA. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, she was a Command Historian for the 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve (MFR) and was activated in February 2003 for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM I (OIF I) as the Officer-in-Charge of the Peacetime/Wartime Support Team, 8th Tank Battalion, 4th Marine Division in Rochester, New York. She was promoted to the rank of Colonel in August of 2003.
In January of 2004, she joined the 4th Marine Logistics Group, MFR, as the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1 in New Orleans, LA. In this billet, Colonel Chase was mobilized in support of OIF II in January of 2006. She recently completed a year-long deployment as the Assistant Chief of Staff G-1 for II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) at Al Asad, Iraq. Colonel Chase is on military leave from Hewlett Packard Corporation in Austin, Texas, where she is the Global Director of Services Development for the Imaging and Printing Technology Group.
Colonel Barker holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, New York. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation and a member of the Board of Governors of the Marine Corps Association. Her personal decorations include the Legion of Merit with one gold star, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with one Gold Star, the Selected Marine Corps Reserve Medal with four Bronze Stars, and the Armed Forces Reserve Service Medal with silver hourglass and mobilization M(3).
