Brian Burnett: His time to lead the School of Engineering to new heights

His story

From the disco era to the digital era, Brian Burnett has maintained a strong link to the School of Engineering.

His affinity for UNM Engineering runs deep, both personally and professionally. It was at UNM where he made lifelong friends in addition to receiving an excellent education that prepared him for a successful career.

Burnett was born in Austin, Texas, and raised in what is perhaps the most engineering-centric city in the United States: Los Alamos, New Mexico. The family moved there after his father, a Ph.D. engineer, was flipping through an issue of Scientific American and saw a job posting for a position at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Burnett said growing up in that community shaped him during his formative years.

“Los Alamos has the highest concentration of Ph.D.s in the country, so the expectations were high and I received a very good education.”

He said the Lab was like a small, close-knit town (his mother also worked at the Lab as a librarian), but when he was in high school, his father decided to pursue another interest, quitting his engineering job to buy a bookstore, which he kept until 1990.

That entrepreneurial quest runs deep in the family. “We had four generations of Burnetts owning their own businesses,” he said.

And Brian was no different. “I am a businessperson at heart.”

He had a 34-year career at Bohannan Huston, the last 15 of which were as CEO.

He said he was accepted to another school, but chose UNM, first to study architecture, then switched to civil engineering.

“Civil is the only engineering field I could have gotten my degree in,” Burnett said.

He quickly made a home in Engineering, enjoying Lobo sports and making a good friend in Ron Marquez, with whom he now volunteers in the School of Engineering. “We helped each other get through and really enjoyed each other. We were great friends.”

Burnett earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1978 and went on to earn a master’s in hydrology and water resources from UNM in 1980.

He also was inspired by two others he volunteers with in the School: Gerald May, who taught him structures, and Delores Etter, who taught him Fortran.

How he is giving back

Burnett and his wife, Celia, are investing heavily in his home department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, where he has donated and volunteered on advisory committees for three decades.

“It has kept me very close to the department and the students,” where he said he found a lot of talent for his business. And “on a personal level, giving back is saying ‘thank you’ to UNM for giving me the foundation for a long career.”

After retiring from Bohannan Huston, he deepened his investment in the School, getting involved in leading alumni efforts and the campaign committee, mainly because he feels passionate about the work and potential of the School and in efforts to educate more engineers.

“The country and world have many challenges, and engineering is a big part of the development of those solutions,” he said. “What we do improves society.”

Burnett says that need has always been great, but it will increase, so more investment is needed not just to attract and retain students, but to ensure continued excellence and innovation within the School. He sees supporting UNM Engineering as key to that journey to new heights. For instance, in 10 years, his goal is for the School to rank in the Top 50 in the U.S. News & World Report graduate survey (it currently ranks No. 84).

“The School continues to grow minds — in the number of graduates and in our economic impact,” he said. “There are a lot of societal changes that are happening, and we need to adapt, which means the need will increase for more engineers.”

For Burnett, the time is now and the place is UNM Engineering.

“We have great synergy here that can be leveraged,” he said. “This is one of those urgent times where we need to increase our resources to do the work we need to do and continue to grow.”