01 / Local roots
A Meade County story.
Mark Burnett has called Meade County home since he was eight years old.
Now a candidate for 4th District Magistrate, he brings decades of experience solving problems in the workplace, along with his service to his church and community. He is seeking to represent the residents of Ashcraft, Brandenburg East, and Brandenburg West.
After moving to Brandenburg as a child, Mark attended Central Elementary, James R. Allen Elementary, and Meade County Middle School. He graduated from Meade County High School in 1988 and later earned an associate degree in Electronics Engineering.
02 / Family & faith
The people who matter most.
Mark and his wife, Kathy, have been happily married for 36 years. They are the proud parents of three sons, two of whom served in the United States Navy. They have four grandchildren and are looking forward to welcoming a fifth.
A devout Christian, Mark serves as an Elder at Journey Church of Brandenburg. He also runs the local Church Softball League, helping bring people from area churches together through fellowship and friendly competition.
03 / Small business
Understanding the work firsthand.
Mark and Kathy are also small business owners. Together, they own Burnett Embroidery and Screen Printing and the gift shop at the Patton Museum on Fort Knox.
These businesses give them firsthand experience with the work and responsibility involved in serving customers and operating a small business.
04 / Professional experience
From the assembly line
to global leadership.
A career built on listening, learning, and making things work better.
Mark began his career with Symbol Technologies in Louisville in 1995 as an assembler. He quickly advanced to supervisor, and in 2001 he was promoted to manage the company’s Indianapolis plant. There, he began working with Lean Six Sigma, a method for finding the causes of problems, reducing waste, and improving how work gets done.
Learning to advocate for people.
In 2005, Symbol decided to close the Indianapolis plant and move its work to Reynosa and Juarez, Mexico. Mark experienced firsthand what it means to see jobs leave a community for another country. He considers himself blessed to have found a position back at the Louisville plant, where he became a Customer Advocate. In that role, he represented customers’ needs and worked to make sure the plant understood and met their requirements.
Putting practical experience to work.
When Motorola purchased Symbol Technologies in 2007, Mark’s analytical skills and experience working with customers led to an opportunity on the engineering team. He used the Lean skills he had developed in Indianapolis to improve production line layouts and work methods. Those changes helped employees produce more with less effort and saved the company millions through better use of time and space.
Mark was invited into Motorola’s formal Lean Six Sigma training program. Over the next four years, he built on his practical experience and earned his Lean Six Sigma Black Belt through Motorola University in Chicago, Illinois.
A broader responsibility.
Another major change came in 2013, when Motorola moved its service operations to Sanmina Corporation. Mark found a new opportunity with Sanmina as the division’s Lean Six Sigma lead and later earned the rank of Master Black Belt. Across his work with Symbol Technologies, Motorola, and Sanmina, his improvements have generated nearly $20 million in total value.
Nearly $20 million
in total value generated through improvements at Symbol Technologies, Motorola, and Sanmina.
In 2019, Mark was promoted to Global Quality Manager. In that role, he oversees quality at 10 plants across seven countries. His responsibilities draw on the experience he gained at every stage of his career, from assembling products to managing a plant and advocating for customers.
05 / Bringing it home
Experience in service
of his community.
Mark brings that experience to his candidacy for 4th District Magistrate. His work has required him to listen carefully, understand why problems happen, and find practical ways to use resources more effectively.
Those skills, together with his ties to Meade County and his experience as a small business owner, are the foundation he brings to this race.
For Meade County 4th District Magistrate