PALMER, AK - Val Barber was born in Winter Haven, FL, in 1956, the second of four daughters of Russell and Marilyn Barber.  She grew up in West Dover, VT, in a ski lodge called The Alp Hof operated year-round by her parents. After high school in Vermont, she went to the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) and  received an undergraduate degree in oceanography. It was in Florida that she started rowing, eventually becoming part of the 1980 US Olympic Rowing Team.  She was inducted into the FIT Hall of Fame in 2013.