Gary Barnhard serves as Executive Committee Chairman and an at-large member of the Board of Directors for the National Space Society (NSS).

Mr. Barnhard is the owner and president of Barnhard Associates, LLC, a systems engineering consulting firm and Internet Service Provider (Xisp.net) based in Cabin John, Maryland. He is a robotic space systems engineer whose professional work includes a wide range of robotic, space and computer systems engineering projects.

Over the last 28 years he has been extensively involved in the space advocacy community as the co-founder and executive director of the Maryland Alliance for Space Colonization (MASC), one of the most successful chapters/affiliates of the L5 Society. He is also founder and executive director of the Space Development Foundation, a frequent public speaker on space advocacy issues, an organizer of space related educational programs and conferences, and participant in many other space advocacy organization activities.

Mr. Barnhard received a B. S. in engineering from the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP), and participated in NASA's Graduate Student Researchers Program. Mr. Barnhard subsequently served as Space Systems Engineer and Information Systems Architect for EER Systems, and as a Senior Space Systems Engineer on the Grumman Space Station Systems Engineering and Integration Contract (SSEIC) responsible for advanced automation and robotic systems support. Mr. Barnhard is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was the Executive Secretary of the Space Station Freedom Program Robotics Working Group and received a NASA Group Achievement Award for the Robotic Systems Integration Standards Interface Design Review Team, as well as an Outstanding Support Award from the Canadian Space Agency Space Station Freedom Program Liaison Office. He received the National Space Society's Pioneering Space Award in 2004 for his efforts on the behalf of the Society.

Mr. Barnhard feels that the National Space Society can and must rise to the challenge of being architects, staunch advocates, and supporters of a reasoned evolution into a spacefaring society. By doing so, NSS can make a material difference in helping to provide for a positive future, a future we would all like to see come to pass.