Steve Barnum joined the Tidewater Guitar Orchestra in 2023 and was appointed to the TCG Board in 2025.  He was inspired to pick up the guitar in 2016 after seeing Sharon Isbin perform in Hampton Roads at a concert sponsored by Tidewater Classical Guitar. He has a passion for music of all genres, but especially for classical and jazz guitar.  He is a Master Gardener, competes in dog obedience, conformation and tracking, volunteers at Oasis food pantry, a church choir member and member or past member of numerous Boards to include Suffolk Wetlands Board, Nansemond River Preservation Alliance, Mariner’s Museum Tidewater Dog Tracking Club, and Marine Board of National Academies of Science.

In a previous chapter of his life, Captain Barnum, NOAA (ret), completed his career in 2009 as the Director of the Office of Coast Survey (OCS) within the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and as official U.S. National Hydrographer. In this position he led the oldest government scientific organization in the United States, having its foundation when President Thomas Jefferson established the Survey of the Coast in 1807. He specialized in Coast Survey mission objectives, including more than eight years of hydrographic field operations aboard five NOAA ships to include Commanding Officer of the Norfolk based ships NOAA Ship THOMAS JEFFERSON and WHITING, which conducted numerous mapping projects including Homeland security surveys along the entire U.S. east coast and Caribbean territories in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Captain Barnum was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University; a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Maryland; and an M.S. in Software Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. 

He retired to Suffolk, VA in 2009 with his wife, Jane, and their two Champion Chesapeake Bay Retrievers “Skipper and Hamlet” and “Mr. Darcy” their Champion Pembroke Welsh Corgi.