Lending a hand, Burns continues mission to serve others in crises

For the last 12 years, Breaux Burns ’01 has had his travel bags packed and ready to go, but not for a getaway to paradise. Rather, quite the opposite.

Burns, a Marine Corps veteran, became a Las Cruces firefighter in 2007. While he was looking for other ways to help people, he came across a nonprofit organization called Team Rubicon through a Google search. The nonprofit sends veterans and public service workers off to disasters to provide aid to global communities before, during and after disasters and crises.

“A few months after joining Team Rubicon, I was deployed to New York City for the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It all started from that point,” he says. “I’ve been a part of field leadership, domestic and abroad, where I’ve deployed with different teams nationally and internationally for disaster response.”

Other deployments for Burns include the Philippines (2013), Nepal (2015), Australia and the South Pacific Island of Kiribati (2015), Greece (2016), Mozambique, Africa (2019) and Ukraine (2022). He recently reflected on his 10-year mark since his first international operation, Typhoon Haiyan.

“The team, the stress of the situation, the positive outcome of our work and the memories made are all still so vivid, it seems like yesterday,” he says. “Being in the post-disaster environment and taking on the surrounding emotions of loss is an uneasy feeling. All we can do as a team is find the best ways to help and render care, whether it’s cleaning wounds or tarping roofs, and anything and everything in between.”

Through all these experiences and whirlwind of emotions, Burns emphasized that working with a team is crucial in situations like these to create a better outcome. 

“There’s no ‘I’ in the disaster arena; it takes all hands on deck to make the biggest difference. It’s the same for the fire service or in my family. It takes the whole team to get the best results,” he says.

Burns, a College of Business graduate, expressed how the university helped shift his perspective of what his future could look like.

“Starting out at NMSU as an 18-year-old from Albuquerque, my life direction was foggy, but not out of reach,” he says. “NMSU taught me responsibility, and the importance of setting small goals to reach the finish line. NMSU is a part of my life formula, and my path wouldn’t look quite the same without it.”