Our Mission

Mr. Barker presently serves as a consultant to MarketStreet Enterprises and its family of companies. These firms were founded by Mr. Barker and Mr. Steve Turner in 2000, and have been involved as private equity investors in a variety of projects primarily in the southeastern part of the United States ranging from distribution, publishing, technology and manufacturing to real estate construction and development. MarketStreet Management, LLC, for which Mr. Barker serves as Chairman of the Executive Committee, manages the daily operations of The Gulch Project, which is a “New Urban, In-Fill Mixed Use” real estate development of some 50 acres in Nashville’s urban core. Mr. Barker also privately develops other real estate and consults on the development of a variety of other real estate projects in the Nashville, TN market.

He was born in Sandwich, Illinois in 1944, and is a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1966, and a graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1969. From 1969 through 1972 he served on active duty as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps, then returning to Nashville to practice commercial real estate law for many years. Mr. Barker remains active in the Nashville community through service to a variety of philanthropic organizations. In addition to having served for seven years on the board of the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, he currently serves on the board of directors of the Nashville Opera, the Vanderbilt Eye Institute, among others.

He and his wife, Judy Liff Barker, reside in Nashville, Tennessee on their farm, are involved in a variety of philanthropic activities in Nashville and elsewhere, and spend their summers in St. George, Maine. Together, they collect art, enjoy their combined families, and travel frequently.