Imagine being 15 years old and caught between two parents who don’t exactly like each other very much. After the divorce you have to keep track of all the money you spend just to prove that your mother provides more than half of your financial support. When you finally graduate from high school and enroll for college halfway across the state, your mother suffers from an aneurysm. You decide to stay home and care for her and attend community college in the meanwhile. Though many kids in this situation never make it out of the small town they grew up in, the man I’m going to talk about today had the drive to succeed in everything he did, but he didn’t lose sight of his values on the way. He has influenced me in my ways of thinking and acting by the way he has succeeded, offered his services to others, and cared for his family, even as he should’ve been caring for himself.
After a year and a half of community college, he finally went away to the University of Kansas to further his education. There he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration and one in industrial management. He had also done some undergraduate work in accounting and mathematics. He continued on to receive his master’s in operations research. He even started to pursue a PhD, but instead he took a job at Arthur Anderson as a management consultant, making $12,000 a year, which was fairly good pay in those days. Over the years he held many more jobs, most as computer consultants, programmers, or engineers, but more importantly, over the years, he did a lot of volunteer work.
This man was a fire-fighter and rescue-worker for 18 years and taught first aid and CPR for ten years for the Red Cross & was even proclaimed Red Cross Volunteer of the Year once. He also taught CPR to his children’s boy scout and girl scout troops. To this day, he still takes classes to keep his EMT certification.
He has always offered his computer expertise to family and friends who needed the help, but over the past several years he has been using his skills as a volunteer at Surplus Exchange, a company that refurbishes old computers to sell at discount prices to nonprofit organizations and those who otherwise could not afford them.
Most recently, however, he has gotten involved with the Aussie Rescue program which rescues abused and unwanted Australian Shepherds. He adopted one Aussie in 1999 and just recently adopted his second a couple of months ago.
As if this weren’t enough to applaud the man, he is also loyal to his family. He constantly cares for his ailing mother, dropping everything to help her when she needs it, and he even provided a home for her for six and a half years. Other than caring for his mother, he has been married to the same woman for thirty years and is the father of four bright children. He has worked hard throughout their lives to make it easy for them. He has also tried to instill in them values and money sense. He has taught them to work hard, the importance of a good education, and to succeed.
On top of all these great and wonderful things he has done for himself, for his community, and for his family, he suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis, and though these diseases slow him down, he doesn’t allow them to stop him. He continues his work for everybody else, as he also tries to keep his illnesses under control.
Who is this man who has dealt with feuding parents, succeeded in school and in business, volunteers his spare time, and cares so much about his family, even when he should be caring for himself? His name is Robert Mather Burns and he is a big reason as to why I am who I am today and why I push myself so hard to succeed – this man, this hard-working, concerned, determined man, is my daddy.