Barbara Hartman Berner is a leader who has made a significant difference in health care in Alaska.

Devoting her career to education and healthcare policy in Alaska and nationally, she implemented and improved education of Community Health Aides/Practitioners (CHA/PS) as instructor, Training Coordinator and researcher.

Berner is known in the nursing community as an organized and calm leader. Those traits served her well as she developed the first breast and cervical cancer screening program for low-income women in Alaska in the first federally funded Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program in the Section of Epidemiology, Division of Public Health, State of Alaska. The statewide program is still in place today.

As Associate Professor, then Director at the UAA School of Nursing, Berner supervised three nursing programs with over 500 enrolled students. After reconfiguring the Family Nurse Practitioner Program to continue to meet national standards, she developed and implemented the first doctoral level program offered independently by the UAA campus, the Doctorate in Nursing Practice. This highest-level degree provides nurses the opportunity to participate more fully in making policy improvements to quality health care both within their communities and statewide.

Berner shaped policy to improve healthcare services to Alaskans in many areas by her participation in professional leadership positions in local, regional, and national organizations, including Alaska Youth Advocates (President, 7 years), Alaska Nurse Practitioner Association (President, 5 years), Alaska State Board of Nursing (Chair, 2 years), and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (Board of Directors, 4 years, President, 1 year).

In her 43 years of nursing practice in Alaska which included a clinical practice, Berner has been an inspiration to her students and colleagues. Her legacy will continue.