Our Board

After a long career, Barbara Ann Harms is retired and spending her time volunteering at the Mohawk Hudson River Humane Society, where she served for two years as President of the Board and presently serves as Vice President. In addition, she is a member of the Catholic School Board for the Diocese school board and is involved in a project to reform catholic education in the area.

Formerly, Barbara Ann Harms was the Director of Business and Economic Development for Questar III BOCES. In that position, she worked with economic development entities, corporations, businesses and not for profit organizations to form strong and sustainable partnerships between these groups and education. Her focus was to bring private sector businesses and education together to successfully complete the building of “Tech Valley High” and its Business Campus.

Beginning in 1991, Ms. Harms was the Executive Director of the Empire State Advantage, Inc. (Formerly called the Excelsior Program- New York State’s Quality Management Program). This was a unique program designed to promote the use of world-class leadership and management tools and strategies in the education, public, private and health care sectors. She worked with high-caliber representatives of each sector, including organized labor, to establish the processes required to manage and deliver the Empire Advantage Program, statewide. She spoke widely on the topic of world-class management systems to groups representing all economic sectors. She shared world-class management strategies for use in the education sector with representatives from countries including: Finland, England, Spain, Sweden, Brazil, Australia and France. She worked closely with leaders of national corporations to develop and deliver Empire State Advantage Programs. These included Corning Incorporated, Xerox Corporation, AT&T, American Express, General Electric Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Metropolitan Life, IBM Corporation, and Chase Banking Corporation.

Prior to becoming Empire State Advantage, Inc.’s Executive Director, Ms. Harms worked for a number of years at the New York State Department of Labor in a variety of positions including: Director of Labor Policy and Planning, Director of Labor- Management Affairs, and administrator of the reorganization of the Department of Labor.

She is a former teacher, having taught in both New York State and Alaska. She has been a teacher-union leader serving as union president, member of the Board of Directors of the New York State United Teachers, and as Vice President of the AFL-CIO Troy Area Labor Council.

Ms. Harms received her Bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and a Masters degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. She also
completed course work at Merton College, Oxford University and the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

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MS Class of 2013 | University of Michigan

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