Photo: courtesy of Barbara Putnam
Lessons Learned Barbara Putnam (’95)
Acadia community offered well-rounded experience that now governs military’s Director of Chaplain Services
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ACADIA BULLETIN SPRING 2020
By Jim Prime (’69)
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arbara Putnam graduated from Acadia Divinity College (ADC) and Acadia University in 1995 with a Master of Divinity, having previously obtained a BSc in data analysis from UNB. She returned to the Wolfville campus in 2018 to receive the ADC Distinguished Alumni Award. The story of what happened in between, and how she came to be named one of Esprit de Corp magazine’s Top 20 Women in Defense in 2019, is interesting. After graduation from Acadia, the Saint John, NB native became an ordained minister in 1996 and pastored churches in her home province and Nova Scotia. In 2000, her career path took a turn as she left civilian life and enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a captain. “I entered the military just after the 1998 Swissair disaster and just prior to 9/11,” she says. “There were few Baptists in the Chaplain Service then and even fewer women. The early years of my career were spent in army field units, on mission in Afghanistan, and second language training.” She was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2003 with a National Command Element, Brigade Headquarters staff and soldiers from the 3 RCR Battalion Group to form rotation zero of Operation ATHENA, Canada’s first contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Col. (Rev.) Putnam then moved quickly through the ranks, graduating from the Canadian Forces College Joint Command and Staff Programme in 2011, being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 2012 and full Colonel in 2016. Col. Putnam and her husband Bradford Putnam (’95) live in Ottawa, where she currently serves as Director of Chaplain Services in the Royal Canadian Chaplain Service, and as the Strategic Spiritual Advisor to Operation HONOUR, the CAF‘s mission to eliminate harmful and inappropriate sexual behaviour in the Canadian military.
