Wes Barnett is a two-time U.S. Olympic Team Member (’92, ’96) in the sport of weightlifting. Barnett reigned over the U.S. heavyweight division of USA Weightlifting for 10 years, 8 of those years as National Champion. Among those, was a 1999 U.S. title that came just six months after returning to the sport following a bout with cancer.
Weight classes have changed and they just immortalized my record so it will never be broken!
Barnett who has always been a staunch advocate for drug-free sport, began his career at the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee in 1997 while still an athlete, working in the USOPCs Drug Control Administration.
In 2000 after Barnett finished competing, he was hired by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee in the Sport Partnership division. In this position, he served as a point of contact between the USOPC and the sport National Governing Bodies (NGBs) for 9 Olympic and Pan American sports. He helped to design customized athlete support and coaching systems along with measurements to monitor progress and completed assessments of the NGBs capabilities, needs, opportunities and properties to maximize performance on the playing field.
In 2002, Barnett landed the role of Executive Director for the US Weightlifting Federation. As the first Olympian and minority to hold the post, he exercised general management and oversight for the organization, while overseeing all aspects of the organizations resource allocation process which includes both financial and non-financial resources to athletes, coaches and clubs.
In 2006 Barnett returned to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee where he worked as a Team Leader for team sports on the summer Olympic, Paralympic and Pan American Games programs. Here he oversaw the administration of the sports from a financial and organizational perspective and was responsible for the distribution of resources to maximize impact on performance. He was responsible for 31 sports (17 Olympic, 10 Paralympic and 4 Pan Am only sports) on the Summer Olympic program.
In 2016, Barnett joined Thorne HealthTech, a nutritional supplement/health technology company as their VP of Business Development for Athletics. After 6 years in this position, Barnett moved to VP of Business Development for Corporate Wellness.
Barnett earned his bachelor’s degree in media management and broadcasting from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in 1994. Mr. Barnett is married and with his wife have two sons and one daughter.