Mark Barnett

BARNETT

MARK BARNETT

Mark Barnett of Gaithersburg, Maryland, passed away peacefully on the morning of September 26, 2022 after a long life of accomplishment, love, and laughter. Born on Sunday, March 27, 1932, Mark graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Pharmacy from Rutgers University in 1950, and then returned to graduate school in 1960 at the University of Pittsburgh where he earned a Masters of Public Health in Radiation Science.



Over the following 35 years in the Public Health Service, Mark developed programs to educate consumers, health professionals, and industry on minimizing radiation exposure from electronic products, as well as on the safe use of medical devices. As the Assistant Director for Education and Communication in the FDA (CDRH), he worked with senior staff on how to best communicate scientific and technical information. Then, after retiring from the Public Health Service as a Captain in 1995, Mark worked for another 20 years as a Senior Staff Fellow for the FDA, finally retiring altogether in 2015 with a FDA Distinguished Career Service Award.



Mark's life was filled with a variety of other passions as well, including photography, basketball, food, and above all, jazz. His black and white photographs, taken with an old box camera mounted on a tripod, look closely at texture and design. Mark played basketball regularly, four seasons per year, until he was well over 70. And for almost 10 years, Mark reviewed restaurants for the Washington Post Magazine and the paper's weekly Maryland section. But Mark's love of jazz lasted a lifetime. He listened to, admired, and finally wrote about many favorites in his online column "Getting Into Jazz." Those writings on jazz were brought together in Getting Into Jazz (2020), a collection especially useful for "when you'd like to listen to jazz but are not sure where to start."



Mark is survived by his wife and best friend of twelve years, Cathy Oliveri Barnett. He also leaves behind two children, Daniel and Mary Jane Barnett, children of his first wife, Gail Barnett, who died in 2007; and three grandchildren, Lula, Jackie, and Katie–all of whom will miss him terribly.



A Memorial Service will be held on Friday, October 7, 2022 at 6:00 pm at the Episcopal Church Of The Ascension, 205 S. Summit Avenue, Gaithersburg, MD followed by a reception at the church.



In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Doctors Without Borders (https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/) or to "All About Jazz," the jazz site that hosted Mark's column, (https://www.allaboutjazz.com).



Please view and sign the family guest book at:

www.PumphreyFuneralHome.com