Dr. Phil Barnett

Dr. Barnett has spent more than forty years in the aerospace industry, beginning in 1958, one year after the Soviet Launch of Sputnik. He has had an illustrious career of continually increasing responsibilities, scope and scale in program and project planning, project management, and implementation. His hands-on experiences span the early conceptual phases of space flight programs and projects to the hard details of implementation as well as covering the evolution of the aerospace industry from it’s early formative days in the late1950s to 2000. Phil spent nearly 34 years at the California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion laboratory, retiring in 2000. He was responsible for leading major efforts in some notable “firsts” in the evolution of deep space exploration. The first two-planet swing-by in aerospace history (Venus and Mercury). He also was the lead for NASA’s first formal space shuttle program studies to examine the use of this revolutionary reusable space transportation system for deep space missions. During the Shuttle’s development and early operational phases Phil become the recognized experts in the use of the space shuttle for deep space missions. After the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion Phil played a leading role in the JPL/NASA “Return to Flight” efforts and was instrumental in ensuring the continuity of the JPL/NASA planetary exploration program. Now “retired,” Phil couples his hands-on practical 40+ years of experience with his academic background from CGU to teach part time at the MBA level at the University of La Verne. Since1999 Phil has taught at Pepperdine University, the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, the University of La Verne, and at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo). Some classes he has taught include; Technology Management, Project Management, Crisis Management, Leadership, Strategy, Managing Change, and Power and Politics in Organizations.