23 May Member Spotlight: Sheila Barry-Oliver, Ed.D.
Dr. Sheila Barry-Oliver was installed as president of BPW/FL on May 21, 2022 (a date when her mother would have turned 99 were she still alive). She announced her theme as “Energizing the Future Today,”, which applies to both the BPW organization and to BPW members. Sheila joined BPW in 1979 and has served in multiple BPW capacities at the local, regional, state and national levels. She served as BPW/Virginia President in 1992-1993 and twice as a local president for both BPW/St. Petersburg-Pinellas and BPW/Greater Fairfax (in Virginia) and currently serves as Treasurer of BPW/St. Petersburg-Pinellas. Sheila also served as a trustee for the BPW/USA Foundation (including two years as chair) as well as Chair of the Virginia BPW Foundation. For BPW/FL Sheila has served as BPW/FL Technology Committee Chair, BPW/FL Parliamentarian and Editor of Florida Business Woman. In addition to BPW, Sheila was on the Girls Inc of Pinellas Board of Directors (serving as President in 2020-2021) and is currently Parliamentarian for the St. Petersburg Women’s Chamber of Commerce.
Professionally Sheila retired in 2012. Sheila was in the corporate sector for 28 years in information technology and management consulting, working for four different professional services firms, Mitre, EDS, Price Waterhouse and Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH). Her last career position was as Director of the global workforce initiative at BAH. She then transitioned to higher education after receiving her doctorate, teaching both in person and online graduate management courses at Trinity Washington University, the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), George Washington University (GW) and Virginia Tech. Sheila received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Emmanuel College (Boston), her MBA from Boston College and her doctorate in human resource development from GW.
Personally, Sheila has been married to her amazing husband Paul for 32 years and has adopted Florida as her home since moving here in 2007. She lived in Massachusetts, Maryland, Kansas, Texas and the Philippines as a child whose father was in the Air Force and in Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia and Florida as an adult. Together Sheila and Paul enjoy traveling the world (having visited 6 of the 7 continents and 50 countries, though their favorite country outside the US is Italy), sampling various cuisines and attending live music performances of the Florida Orchestra at the Mahaffey Theater and jazz at the Palladium Side Door.