Barbara was first introduced to the arts and theatre as a student at the University of Queensland Cement Box Theatre. In her position as Manager she began to encourage and promote local and touring professional, amateur productions and student works.

She then joined Malcolm Blaylock's team at La Boite Theatre as the publicist followed by a position as the first Community Arts Officer for Brisbane.

With the building of the new Queensland Performing Arts Trust, Barbara became the Program Officer and worked on the opening celebrations, particularly on Chris Westwood’s Youth Festival. Afterwards she moved to Sydney working initially for the NSW Community Arts Network as their Executive Officer. This was followed up as Business Manager at Belvoir Street Theatre and Finance and Marketing Coordinator for The Performance Space.

Throughout this period she made a biennal journey to Adelaide to get her fix of new art, networking and excitement at the Festival and Fringe. In 1990 she travelled to the USA and began working for the Los Angeles Festival with Peter Sellers and others. This began her career path into major festivals and events both large scale and small that took her into assisting exciting new performance companies such as the Sydney Front, consulting in Japan, Directing the Adelaide Fringe, Brisbane Writers Festival and her current role as an Events Officer in Northern NSW. 

As Director of the Adelaide Fringe Barbara was proud to represent independent artists in all art forms and strive to produce a program that was fun and entertaining while still being meaningful and adventurous. Her time at the Fringe coincided with an explosion of new Fringe Festivals in the US and Canada. During this period of activity, Barbara believes that it was great to see that Adelaide Fringe could have the international reputation as a leader in the field.