Henry Barmeier: the Renaissance man

Dressed as a German patriarch in a regal red robe, Class of 2006 alumnus Henry Barmeier furiously shouted at the male suitors as they tried to sweep his wife off her feet. Starring as Theo in the play “The Underpants” in his senior year of high school, the drama newbie spewed out lines displaying his clueless and short-tempered personality. He broke character almost immediately thereafter, a smile spreading across his face as he began laughing uncontrollably.

“It took me nearly until the end of our rehearsals to say all of my lines with a straight face,” Barmeier said. “The role gave me a great outlet to channel a lot of stress and anxiety in the middle of senior year.”

Barmeier was first exposed to Saratoga High performing arts during his second semester of senior year.

Even as he excelled in the classroom, Barmeier participated in many extracurriculars. Between running in the 2004 cross country state championship and participating in a drama production, Barmeier was also the editor-in-chief of The Falcon.

After high school, Barmeier attended Princeton University. There, he majored in food and agriculture policy, a seemingly odd and unusual choice for a student from Silicon Valley, the heart of science and engineering.

Barmeier said that it was after listening to a lecture by Michael Pollan, the well-known author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” during his freshman year that he became interested in this subject. Agriculture policy is a unifying focus for economics, politics, sociology, psychology and other social science disciplines that Barmeier wanted to study.

Barmeier also decided to minor in Spanish.

“I loved my experiences in Spanish courses at Saratoga High and wanted to continue growing my fluency in the language,” said Barmeier. “Spanish classes in college were also a pleasant way to incorporate more literature and film into my studies, which were otherwise quite heavy with policy courses.”

At Princeton, Barmeier also joined Outdoor Action, a group that organizes pre-orientation and year round wilderness trips. He led groups of freshmen on treks in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and even on the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut.

He then spearheaded a one-week organic farming outing in central New Jersey for five freshmen.

“[We received] an invitation to a tomato-throwing fight among the organic farmers,” Barmeier said. “Needless to say, I got clobbered and quite messy.”

In 2009, Barmeier was named a Rhodes Scholar, a prestigious scholarship given only to 32 out of roughly 1,500 applicants. Past recipients have included Supreme Court justice David Souter, former president Bill Clinton and one of Clinton’s former advisers and current ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos.

After graduating from Princeton in 2010, Barmeier took advantage of his $50,000 a year Rhodes scholarship and attended Oxford University from 2010 to 2012. He shared a house with six other Rhodes Scholars and often hosted dinner parties, which he recalled as some of his fondest memories at Oxford.

“We would cook massive amounts of food and invite anyone interested in good company conversation,” Barmeier said. “Those nights would typically end well past midnight with an impromptu jam session and sing-along.”

Since graduating from Oxford in 2012 with a master of science, international and comparative education and distinction, he has been working as a consultant at The Bridgespan Group in San Francisco, a firm that advises major foundations and nonprofit organizations. There, he has presented analysis of measurement and learning practices to the global leader of The Salvation Army and built Bridgespan’s first online courses on nonprofit strategy.

He credits his experience as the editor-in-chief of The Falcon as his best preparation for the job.

“[Because of newspaper], I learned so much about how to handle my own stress productively, how to plan weeks' worth of work in advance, how to deal with the unexpected and about what it means to really love what you're doing,” Barmeier said.

He even joked that his “job has yet to match the intensity of some deadline nights at the newspaper.”

Despite the skills he had acquired in high school, Barmeier said he strives to improve his abilities as a coach and manager to other people, which he describes as “a welcome challenge.”

Nevertheless, his optimistic outlook allows him to strive to better himself without becoming complacent.

“I’m really passionate about continuing my work at Bridgespan and becoming more of a trusted and valuable adviser to leaders and organizations in the nonprofit sector,” Barmeier said.