BACKGROUND
As a mechanical engineer (Purdue, ’94), Barlow might well have specialized in complicated explanations and detailed drawings with complex measurements and analytics – but instead, he has built a career out of making the complex simpler to understand.
Barlow has spent roughly 30 years helping retail, hi-tech, and manufacturing companies plan and outsource their IT departments, and the last nine years have been as the director of managed services sales for Dell Technologies.
“My daily life consists of making abstract concepts understandable,” he says.
But his gift for making the complex simple can be traced back to his childhood in Indy. As a young teen, he was already actively teaching younger children at his church, then called Fall Creek Parkway Church of Christ.
“As a Sunday school teacher, I had to figure out how to articulate my faith to kids,” he says, “and I developed a knack for pictures and stories.” It’s still true for him today; the more complicated the concept is, the more he looks for a picture or word picture with which to illustrate it.
His mom was the fifteenth of sixteen siblings who also grew up in Indy, so young Barlow had plenty of family at church: faith-inspired parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins – one of whom was the minister of the congregation. His early foray into teaching led to worship leadership, more teaching, and even a little preaching before his technology career took off.
As part of that big extended family, he grew up with a great work ethic, watching multiple uncles serve in the armed forces and succeed in long, stable careers afterwards. Since 1962, his mother’s family has gathered for an extended family reunion each year, sometimes drawing up to 500 people. This is a big year, and Barlow is in the thick of what he jokingly calls “a managed services project to plan a reunion.” It is a labor of love two years in the planning complete with website, merchandise sales, project planning, and spreadsheet applications – and set to “go” for Indianapolis this July.
He is a graduate of North Central High School, and married his sweetheart, Angela, shortly after graduating from Purdue. Now married nearly 29 years with three children between 16 and 20, the Barlows have attended Traders Point Christian Church since 2009, volunteering in several ministries over the years.
Outside of work and church, he’s been active at The Oaks Academy, where all three of his children attended through 8th grade. Oaks provides a rigorous, classical education to a racially and socioeconomically balanced student body. At the Academy, he helped start Iron Men of Oaks at the Fall Creek campus, a volunteer group to encourage dads and husbands in their roles. Eventually, he served on and chaired the board, and is still active in helping implement the 2020-2025 strategic plan for the organization.
BARLOW'S IDEAS FOR A BETTER INDY
DENNIS BARLOW TRIVIA
Favorite hobbies besides work? Traveling with family; listening to and playing music (guitar and piano); good movies
Go to snack and beverage? Cashews, Water
Favorite restaurant, locally? Noah Grant’s Grill House and Oyster Bar, Zionsville
Favorite places for a vacation? Barcelona (“we’d live there if we could”) or Bahamas
Secret Dream? To help fulfill my kids’ dreams
Connect with Dennis Barlow at dennis.barlow3@gmail.com and here on LinkedIn.
As a mechanical engineer (Purdue, ’94), Barlow might well have specialized in complicated explanations and detailed drawings with complex measurements and analytics – but instead, he has built a career out of making the complex simpler to understand.
Barlow has spent roughly 30 years helping retail, hi-tech, and manufacturing companies plan and outsource their IT departments, and the last nine years have been as the director of managed services sales for Dell Technologies.
“My daily life consists of making abstract concepts understandable,” he says.
But his gift for making the complex simple can be traced back to his childhood in Indy. As a young teen, he was already actively teaching younger children at his church, then called Fall Creek Parkway Church of Christ.
“As a Sunday school teacher, I had to figure out how to articulate my faith to kids,” he says, “and I developed a knack for pictures and stories.” It’s still true for him today; the more complicated the concept is, the more he looks for a picture or word picture with which to illustrate it.
His mom was the fifteenth of sixteen siblings who also grew up in Indy, so young Barlow had plenty of family at church: faith-inspired parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins – one of whom was the minister of the congregation. His early foray into teaching led to worship leadership, more teaching, and even a little preaching before his technology career took off.
As part of that big extended family, he grew up with a great work ethic, watching multiple uncles serve in the armed forces and succeed in long, stable careers afterwards. Since 1962, his mother’s family has gathered for an extended family reunion each year, sometimes drawing up to 500 people. This is a big year, and Barlow is in the thick of what he jokingly calls “a managed services project to plan a reunion.” It is a labor of love two years in the planning complete with website, merchandise sales, project planning, and spreadsheet applications – and set to “go” for Indianapolis this July.
He is a graduate of North Central High School, and married his sweetheart, Angela, shortly after graduating from Purdue. Now married nearly 29 years with three children between 16 and 20, the Barlows have attended Traders Point Christian Church since 2009, volunteering in several ministries over the years.
Outside of work and church, he’s been active at The Oaks Academy, where all three of his children attended through 8th grade. Oaks provides a rigorous, classical education to a racially and socioeconomically balanced student body. At the Academy, he helped start Iron Men of Oaks at the Fall Creek campus, a volunteer group to encourage dads and husbands in their roles. Eventually, he served on and chaired the board, and is still active in helping implement the 2020-2025 strategic plan for the organization.
BARLOW'S IDEAS FOR A BETTER INDY
- PURSUE UNITY. John 17 is a favorite passage for him to reflect on. It contains Jesus’ big prayer for unity. “Strides have been made in racial unity,” he says, “but so much more can be done – not just here, but around the world.”
- TEST THE FRUITFULNESS OF YOUR LIFE IN A NEW WAY. Galatians 5:22-23 is a passage he’s studied throughout his life, but reading it anew in The Message has yielded new insights beyond the traditional “love, peace, patience,” etc. The Message version reads like this: “But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.”
- C7 IS A FRUIT-FULL ORGANIZATION. Speaking of fruit, Barlow recently visited the C7 website and read through the seven pillars of Citizen 7 men, also drawn from Galatians 5. His takeaway is that those who participate in C7 don’t do it for glory, or a project, or a clever initiative. “It’s like a garden with fruit,” he says. “It’s who they are.” (Feel free to read the pillars over if you haven’t recently here on the website.)
DENNIS BARLOW TRIVIA
Favorite hobbies besides work? Traveling with family; listening to and playing music (guitar and piano); good movies
Go to snack and beverage? Cashews, Water
Favorite restaurant, locally? Noah Grant’s Grill House and Oyster Bar, Zionsville
Favorite places for a vacation? Barcelona (“we’d live there if we could”) or Bahamas
Secret Dream? To help fulfill my kids’ dreams
Connect with Dennis Barlow at dennis.barlow3@gmail.com and here on LinkedIn.
