Vincent P. Barabba

GM General Manager

Corporate Strategy and

Knowledge Development

             Vincent P. Barabba was named general manager of GM Corporate Strategy and Knowledge Development Staff on October 30, 1996.  He is responsible for overseeing the Business Decision Support Center and Knowledge Network Development and Integration, as well as Corporate Strategic Planning. 

        Mr. Barabba joined General Motors in October 1985 as executive director, market research and planning, on the former Marketing and Product Planning Staff.  In January 1993 he was appointed executive-in-charge, General Motors Business Decision Center/Corporate Information Management. 

        A native of Chicago, Illinois, Mr. Barabba was born on September 6, 1934.  He received a bachelor's degree in marketing from California State University at Northridge and an M.B.A. in marketing from the University of California at Los Angeles, in 1964.

        Previously, Mr. Barabba had been director, market intelligence, for the Eastman Kodak Company since 1981.  He twice served as director of the Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, and is the only person to serve in that position under the administration of different political parties.  He served the Census Bureau during the 1973-1976 and 1979-1980 periods, with an intervening role as manager-market research, for Xerox Corporation.  Mr. Barabba is the co-founder of Decision Making Information, now the Wirthlin Group, and from 1969 to 1973 provided electoral information to political campaigns from City Hall to the Presidency.

        Mr. Barabba is the past president and a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has served as U.S. representative to the Population Commission of the United Nations and chairman of the National Research Council Panel to review the statistical program of the National Center for Education Statistics.

        He is the author of Meeting of the Minds (1995 Harvard Business School Press), and co-author of Hearing the Voice of the Market (1991 Harvard Business School Press) and The 1980 Census: Policy Making Amid Turbulence (1983 Lexington Books).

        Mr. Barabba serves on the board of trustees of the Marketing Science Institute and National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago, as well as on the board of directors of the American Institutes for Research.  He has also served as vice president of the American Marketing Association and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

        As recognition of his performance in the private and public sectors, Mr. Barabba received the Charles Coolidge Parlin Award from the American Marketing Association and the Certificate of Distinguished Service for Contribution to the Federal Statistical System from the Office of Management and Budget.  He is also the recipient of a Permanent Honorary Membership in the National Computer Graphics Association.