Oral History with John Barry

Authors

• Dan Royles, Binghamton University--SUNYFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0003-1164-3530

Document Type

Other

Publication Date

7-31-2026

Keywords

HIV/AIDS, Southern Tier AIDS Program, Broome County (New York), Binghamton (New York), New York State, injection drug use, HIV prevention, mutual aid, human services, needle exchanges

Abstract

Oral history interview with John Barry, who has served as Executive Director of the Southern Tier AIDS Program (STAP) since 2008. He was born in Endicott, New York in 1966, grew up in Vestal, and attended high school at Seton Catholic Central in Binghamton before serving in Germany with the United States Army during the early 1980s. When he returned to Broome County in 1987, some of his friends had been affected by HIV/AIDS and, while earning a degree at SUNY Binghamton, Barry became involved in mutual aid efforts to help people affected by the disease. He went to work as a case manager for STAP in 1991 and worked there for two years before leaving to earn a master's degree from the University of Chicago. He returned to Broome County in the early 2000s and was hired back at STAP as Deputy Executive Director in 2005 before being promoted to Executive Director.

Barry recounts STAP's origins as a state-funded HIV community-service program serving eight counties in central and southern New York. He also describes the toll that working in AIDS services took on him as a case manager, and how the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy in the middle 1990s changed what it means to live with—and care for people who live with—HIV. Finally, he discusses the state of the epidemic at the time of the interview, with periodic outbreaks among injection drug users, and STAP's efforts to create syringe exchange programs throughout the region.

Recommended Citation

John Barry, interview by Dan Royles, July 31, 2026.