Barry is a Volunteer State native and former Chief of Enforcement and Compliance for the Division of Water Pollution Control of the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC). Barry contacted PEER over a year before joining the organization, inquiring about PEER’s involvement in helping environmental agency employees stand up for resource protection in the face of political pressure. Barry worked for TDEC from 1976 to 1990, leaving shortly after testifying that the agency had issued an illegal permit, and surviving an unsuccessful attempt at civil service expulsion. Since then, he has created an extensive private practice as an investigator and scientist serving citizen groups and others on a wide range of water quality issues. His more than 40 years of experience in resource management, in both state and federal service as well as private practice, are being put to good use by PEER. “In my experience as an agency employee, at times factors other than science dictated what was supposed to be purely an environmental decision,” says Sulkin. “PEER’s ‘anonymous activism’ offers a way for good employees to stay within the system by giving them a completely safe channel to communicate with their real employer – the public.”