Barbara Bitner came to Oxbow six years ago with over 12 years experience in Education and Arts Management. Her specialty is designing, planning, and implementing, large and small-scale adult, youth and community educational programs. A long time resident of Hawaii before moving to the Bay Area 8 years ago, she founded and ran the PACE (Personal And Community Enrichment) Program at Maui Community College for 10 years. In that capacity she planned and implemented over 200 classes per year in the areas of art, culture, music, dance, health, and personal development. In her spare time, she created Global Rhythms, a 12 event/year performing arts series held at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. The series brought artists from around the world to the Maui stage and into schools around the island.

In addition she founded ArtTech/Maui, a national conference that convened on Maui, and CyberCamp for Kids. Both programs explored the interface of art and technology at a time when art fundamentals seemed to be losing out to technology in the rush to jump into the digital age.

Barbara is co-founder of the Maui Recycling Group (MRG) which in the early 1990's ran a successful campaign to stop the construction of a trash incinerator and start an island-wide recycling program. MRG continues to this day working to keep the island “green”.

Adapting her skills and experience to the creation of Oxbow was a natural extension of her lifelong love of camping, including years as a camp counselor and a deep appreciation for the process of creating art and the impact that that can have on a person's development. “It’s very exciting to be able to put my love of camping and art together and create a program which passes on the benefits and joys of both to today’s youth.”

With an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, she has engages her love of creating art in her studio in Nevada City.