{"id":517688,"date":"2026-03-11T20:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T20:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/517688\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T20:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T20:11:10","slug":"former-ceo-of-space-and-rocket-center-deborah-barnhart-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/517688\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CEO of Space and Rocket Center, Deborah Barnhart, has died"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.waff.com\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WAFF<\/a>) &#8211; The former CEO of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Deborah Barnhart, died Wednesday morning. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Members of her family told WAFF 48 News that she passed away at Huntsville Hospital following a recent cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Deborah Barnhart\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4Z6MFETEEVAKZN6UQMRD4YFGAI.bmp\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Deborah Barnhart(Source: WAFF)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Barnhart led the USSRC for nine years before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.waff.com\/2019\/12\/05\/us-space-rocket-center-ceo-executive-director-stepping-down\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.waff.com\/2019\/12\/05\/us-space-rocket-center-ceo-executive-director-stepping-down\/\">stepping down in 2019<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She also served as director of Space Camp from 1986 to 1990. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Her career spans three decades of service in commercial industry, government, areospace and defense. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A retired Navy Captain (0-6), she was one of the first ten women assigned to duty abroad ships and commanded five units in her 26-year career. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Barnhart was also heavily involved in the arts in Huntsville. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She grew up in Westlawn and was the artist who designed the park and welded the statues and exhibits for Rose Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cDeborah was a great friend. I am glad her sculptures in the Westlawn neighborhood will live on indefinitely as a permanent memorial to her,\u201d Huntsville City Councilman Bill Kling said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@waff48news\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@waff48news\">Click Here to Subscribe on YouTube:<\/a> Watch the latest WAFF 48 news, sports &amp; weather videos on our YouTube channel!<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WAFF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) &#8211; The former CEO of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Deborah Barnhart, died Wednesday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[76062,233985,96348,233986,3,79,193,57614,57615],"class_list":["post-517688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-barnhart","tag-deborah-barnhart","tag-died","tag-former-ceo-of-space-and-rocket-center","tag-news","tag-science","tag-space","tag-waff","tag-waff-48"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}