Captain John P. Barrientos, U.S. Navy, has served on multiple platforms in his various sea tours. As ordinance officer on the USS Reuben James, he deployed with the Abraham Lincoln strike group to the Fifth Fleet area of operations. On the USS Carl Vinson he deployed again to the Fifth Fleet, serving as the reactor mechanical division officer in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

As a department head, Captain Barrientos served as operations officer on the USS Boone, deploying to the Southern Command area of operations to counter narcotics and drug trafficking, and to the Gulf of Aden in support of counter-piracy operations with the Standing NATO Maritime Group. Returning to nuclear duty, he served as chemistry and radiological controls assistant on the USS George Washington during Operation Tomodachi. Captain Barrientos commissioned the USS Omaha as executive officer. Later, he served in command of the USS Jackson completing first-in-class live-fire testing and integration of the surface-to-surface mission module longbow hellfire missile system for the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship.

Captain Barrientos returned to the USS Carl Vinson, serving as reactor officer and leading 520 officers and sailors in delivering power and propulsion to the flagship of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group One. The strike group deployed with the F-35C Lightning 11 to the western Pacific Ocean, including significant time in the South China Sea. The deployment was the first for the navy’s version of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Ashore, he served as directed-energy branch head, Joint Functional Component Command for Space, U.S. Strategic Command, at the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He completed a Staff College curriculum at the Uruguayan Naval War College in Montevideo, Uruguay, before returning to nuclear duty serving as junior board member in the Commander of the Pacific Fleet’s Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board.

Born in West Islip, New York, Captain Barrientos lived his early years in Medellín, Colombia. After returning to the United States for schooling, he studied at the University of Michigan, earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a commission from the naval ROTC in April 2000. He completed the navy nuclear power training pipeline and earned a master’s in engineering management from Old Dominion University.