Gene Barr is the president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business Industry, the state’s largest broad-based business advocacy association. Barr joined the Chamber in 2003 as Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and became president in 2011. He has more than 40 years of experience in politics, government affairs, and business operations including work with BP America, Associated Petroleum Industries of PA and McNees Wallace & Nurick.
He is a member of the United States Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, Committee of 100, Nominating and Governance Committee, and Political Advocacy Committee. He also serves on the boards of the Council of State Chambers, United Way of the Capital Region and National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, in addition to a number of other state and local organizations.
In 2019, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf appointed Mr. Barr co-chair of the Keystone Economic Development and Workforce Command Center, charged with strengthening Pennsylvania’s workforce so that businesses and citizens have the tools and opportunities they need to be successful.
Barr has previously been named “The Most Effective Association Lobbyist” in the Commonwealth in a poll conducted by Pennsylvania Legislative Services and was also included in the Pennlive/Patriot News list of the 17 most influential people in Pennsylvania politics.
He is the author of a non-fiction work on the American Civil War “A Civil War Captain and His Lady: Love, Courtship, and Combat from Fort Donelson through the Vicksburg Campaign.”
Barr is a graduate of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.