2021

Barr is being honored for his work as Planning Section Chief of the Emergency Operations Center, where he is leading efforts to stand up the City & Borough’s testing and vaccination efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This role involves extensive coordination with hospital and public health partners, city departments, assembly members, media, and the community at large. Along with a team of community partners, he co-leads the City's mass vaccination events and created a multipage online guide to answer questions from the community. Due in large part to his efforts, the city’s first mass vaccination clinic in January 2021 was a great success. Ann Symons who nominated Mr. Barr remarked that "Barr took all of the challenges in hand using the skills we value as librarians: access to information, diversity, equity and inclusion, the public good, privacy, and education and life-long learning."