Barnes, TD

Thornton Duard "TD" Barnes was born in Texas on January 25, 1937, grew up on a ranch at Dalhart, Texas, and graduated from Mountain View High School, Oklahoma. He then embarked on a ten-year military career. He served as an army intelligence officer in Korea. Following two years of radar and missile electronics schooling, he taught foreign students the Nike radar and missile system, and deployed with a Hawk missile battalion during the Soviet Iron Curtain threat. He attended Artillery OCS, where an injury ended his military career.

Barnes' career included serving as a field engineer at the NASA High Range in Nevada for the X-15, XB-70, lifting bodies, and lunar landing vehicles. He participated in the NASA NERVA project at Jackass Flats, Nevada; and served in Special Projects at Area 51. Barnes later formed a family oil and gas exploration company, drilling and producing oil and gas and mining uranium and gold.

Barnes is currently the CEO of Startel, Inc., a landowner, and actively mining landscape rock and gold in Nevada. He is also the president of Roadrunners Internationale, an association of Area 51 veterans. Formerly, he was the first executive director of the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.

Barnes married his wife Doris on March 15, 1955 and then had two children, Deborah and Tammy.