Catching Up with Jim Barber

Keeping Current

Catching Up with Jim Barber

Jim Barber started his career as a reporter in New York City, before relocating south in order to provide his family with a life more along the lines of the one he enjoyed growing up on a farm in South Georgia. On the recommendation of a friend, he entered the Southern Company system via Gulf Power in the early 1990s, before joining the Georgia Power corporate communications team in March of 1993. He didn’t get much time to settle into his new role. During Jim’s first week in Atlanta, The Blizzard of ‘93 dropped nearly four feet of snow on parts of North Georgia.

Jim spent his career supporting communications for several organizations within Georgia Power, from executive communications to customer care, the voice of the state’s largest energy provider was indelibly shaped by Jim Barber for decades.

We caught up with Jim on a better weather day than those he started out with – a sunny day without a snowflake in sight.

The below excerpts have been edited for space.

What are you up to now?

It’s hard to believe that I have been retired going on nine years now. I had a novel that was published in 2019 called “Plowed Fields.” It’s about life on a South Georgia tobacco farm in the 1960s—something I know a little bit about. It did really well, surprisingly, and the audiobook came out during the pandemic. I had a great time going around talking to book clubs and Georgia Power Ambassadors chapters about it.

I also battled cancer—throat and neck cancer in 2018. I had a horrific first go around. I was on a feeding tube and couldn’t swallow for four and a half months. It came back in 2020, but I’ve been on immunotherapy since 2021. I just had a PET scan, and I feel very blessed to say that I’m still clear.

I still climb Stone Mountain every day—just like I used to on the way to work for all those years.

And we travel a lot. We’ve been to Europe and Southeast Asia, and soon we’re going to Greenland with my wife, daughter, son-in-law, and our 3-year-old grandson, Noah. He looks just like me.

What was your proudest moment at Georgia Power?

There are a few. I was always proud of the support that I gave the CEOs that I worked with. I think they appreciated me, for the most part.

I worked very closely with the Environmental Affairs group during some really tough times and helped position the company’s messaging in the right way.

I’m also really proud of what we did around diversity in the early 2000s. I worked with David Ratcliffe, who was brilliant, and we rolled out 33 diversity initiatives, which we punctuated with an essay contest, called “Putting the ‘I’ in Diversity” that I put a lot of work into. We gave away $10,000 in company stock to the winner of that contest, which is something I pushed really hard for.

What did you enjoy most about your time at Georgia Power?

As much as I loved the job, I loved the people that much more. I absolutely enjoyed getting up every day and going to work.

The people across Georgia Power—and really, the entire Southern system—were some of the best ever. I always felt valued there, from top to bottom.

Late in my career, I worked with the Customer Service organization, and it was a blast. Seeing what those folks do day in and day out—dealing with customers, keeping the lights on—I had so much respect for them. I felt like I was almost a customer service employee more than a corporate communications employee.

Can you share your secrets to success?

I always said there might be people smarter than me, but no one was ever going to outwork me. I grew up working on a farm, and I think that stuck. I was very blessed to have people who poured into me – who helped me understand the relationship part of the business. Georgia Power is very much a relationship business. But my secret to success? Be willing to invest in others and be willing to allow yourself to be invested in by others.

Work ethic matters, and so does attitude. Find something that makes you happy. When you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. That mindset carried me through my time at Georgia Power and continues to shape how I live today—whether it's through volunteering, traveling, or supporting my community.