COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO — The chief financial officer for the Colorado Commission on Higher Education will be the new vice chancellor for administration and finance at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Brian D. Burnett, 39, of Colorado Springs, will begin his new position July 1, pending approval by the CU Board of Regents. His appointment, which followed a national search, was announced May 22 by CU-Colorado Springs Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak.
“Brian Burnett brings a knowledge of Colorado public finance and the state’s higher education systems that is without parallel,” Shockley-Zalabak said. “This knowledge, when combined with his enthusiasm for the University of Colorado, is a harbinger of the impact I believe he will have on this campus and its future.”
As vice chancellor, Burnett will oversee the university’s approximately $70 million annual budget and will have responsibility for personnel policies that affect the university’s 500 staff members.
Burnett replaces Cleve McDaniel who served as vice chancellor from 1998 to 2002. Since Jan. 2003, Randy Kouba has served as the university’s interim vice chancellor.
For more than a year, Burnett has served as the chief financial officer for the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. In this position, he was responsible for financial analysis and overview of the state’s 28 publicly supported institutions of higher learning and preparation of the Department of Higher Education’s $1.6 billion annual budget. Previously, he held the positions of deputy director of administration and finance director for the Colorado Department of Corrections, owned a small business, and served as a budget analyst for the Joint Budget Committee of the Colorado General Assembly.
“I am honored to be selected to join the leadership team of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs,” Burnett said. “I look forward to working closely with Chancellor Shockley-Zalabak and the faculty and staff to achieve the university’s goals.”
As part of CU’s Vision 2010 plan, CU-Colorado Springs has its sights set on becoming America’s top regional comprehensive research university. U.S. News and World Report, in its 2002 rankings of America’s best universities, called CU-Colorado Springs a “Best in the West.”
A second generation native of Colorado Springs, Burnett earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from CU-Boulder and a master’s degree in finance from CU-Denver. In Oct. 2000, he was named a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall fund of the U.S. As a Marshall Fellow, Burnett was one of 14 young leaders selected from the U.S. to visit NATO, the European Union, European government officials, non-profits and businesses throughout Europe to build transatlantic ties. Burnett is a member of the National Association of College and University Budget Officers.
CU-Colorado Springs, located on Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs, is the fastest growing university in Colorado and one of the fastest growing universities in the nation. The university offers 25 bachelor’s degrees, 17 master’s and two doctoral degrees. The campus enrolls more than 7,400 students annually.