Garvin was a local magistrate on the planet Barkon IV. He was a widower with a daughter named Gia.

In 2370 he met a malfunctioning Lieutenant Commander Data who had been sent to to retrieve radiation fragments from a probe that had fallen to the planet. Garvin and Gia took Data into their home when the android wandered into their village with amnesia. They named him Jayden and believed that he was an iceman from the northern part of their planet. Garvin developed radiation poisoning after being exposed to fragments from a Federation deep space probe that Data had unwittingly carried in. He was later cured of the radiation sickness by Data. (TNG: "Thine Own Self")