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Ernesta B. Barnes
Biography
[EPA press release - June 8, 1983]
Ernesta Ballard Barnes was named today by William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to head EPA's Region X headquartered in Seattle.
Barnes will be responsible for administering and enforcing all EPA programs in the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.
"Ernesta brings a wealth of management experience to this position from the business world and government," said Ruckelshaus. "She will be a front-line representative of the agency at a critical time for EPA. I intend to assign more responsibility to each of my regional administrators in an effort to speed up our job of protecting public health and the environment. I have every confidence in her ability to do the job and look forward to her assistance in resolving the complex environmental issues facing us today."
Barnes has worked in both the private and public sector. She leaves a position as branch administrator with the Seattle Trust and Savings Bank where she was responsible for the management of retail banking activities. She has been with the bank since 1978.
From 1976 to 1978, she served as the director of public service for the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle (METRO). She was the budget director for the University of Washington in Seattle from 1974 to 1976. In the mid-1970s, Barnes was an incorporator and founding board member of Sound Savings and Loan Association in Seattle, which is owned and organized by women.
Barnes received her bachelor of arts degree in religious thought from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967. She studied religious thought at Oxford University in Oxford, England, from 1967 to 1968 and then went on to Harvard University where she received her masters in business administration in 1970.
Barnes, 37, is a native of Philadelphia. She currently resides in Mercer Island, Washington, with her husband, Stanton John Barnes, a management consultant, and their two children, Marieke and Matthew.