Terry E. Barnard, chairman of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles (Courtesy photo)

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles elected Chairman Terry Barnard Tuesday to a fifth one-year term in that role.

Barnard has led the board since 2014. He becomes the first parole board member to serve as chairman for more than four years since 2006.

“The board has important public safety responsibilities,” Barnard said in a news release after the vote. “Each member serves with integrity and commitment to ensure we make the best possible decisions in order to make our communities safer. I am honored to serve again in this capacity.”

Barnard is only the sixth chairman to serve more than four years in the leadership role among the 24 since the agency was created in 1943.

Also Monday, the board reelected Vice Chairman Brian Owens for a second term.

Parole board members are full-time state employees appointed by the governor to seven-year terms subject to confirmation by the state Senate. The board is the only authority in Georgia that can commute a death sentence to life with or without parole eligibility. Board members also determine which parole-eligible offenders will be released to serve the remainder of their prison sentence under community supervision. They have the power to issue pardons and restore political and civil rights.

Then-Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed Barnard to the board in May 2010. Gov. Nathan Deal reappointed him in 2017. Barnard served nearly 16 years in the state Legislature prior to his appointment to the board. He served six years as chairman of the State Institutions and Property Committee.

Barnard is a graduate of Atlantic Community College. He has owned and operated businesses, including a real estate brokerage. He was a vice president and manager of First Citizens Bank of Reidsville and a regional marketing director for Green Tree Acceptance, a mortgage lender.

Barnard is a native of Tattnall County, born in Reidsville—the site of the state's main maximum-security prison since 1938 and home to the state's death row until 1980.

Barnard, 62, now lives in a fish camp village on the Georgia coast called Shellman Bluff.