Michelle Barth could have made a career as a film and video producer. Or as an English teacher.
But after she earned a master’s degree in international studies at a college in England, Barth settled on a career in public service.
Born in Kansas City, Mo., her family moved to Jacksonville when she was 3 after her father, Charlie, got a job with a film and video company.
He later founded White Hawk Pictures and Barth worked her way through the University of North Florida studying to be a teacher by helping out behind the camera.
After UNF, she went to graduate school at the University of Florida before being selected as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. In 2000, while she was at the University of Durham in England, she fielded questions about the controversial U.S. presidential election.
“Everybody wanted to know, ‘What is a chad?’” Barth said.
She returned to the U.S. shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks with a new goal for a career in public service.
After working with the local Democratic Party helping coordinate candidates in City Council elections, she landed a job on U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s staff managing community outreach across 5,000 square miles in the nine counties of his district.
She and an assistant visited each county four times a year, meeting elected officials and constituents while conducting town hall sessions.
“We were the senator’s eyes and ears,” Barth said. “It was very rewarding to connect someone with a service or resolve a problem for them.”
Mayor Alvin Brown named Barth his deputy chief of staff in 2011. One of her major projects has been the 450th anniversary of the landing of French Huguenot sea captain Jean Ribault at the mouth of the St. Johns River.
The commemoration of the French history in Jacksonville will continue in May with “French Week” and in September, when Barth is planning a memorial service 450 years after French settlers were massacred when the Spanish captured Fort Caroline.
The next major project, Barth said, is development of a network of new small businesses to meet future procurement needs of some of Jacksonville’s largest purchasers.
“It’s a new concept with real potential,” she said.
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