Burns, now 71, says, �I have dreamed for half a century of helping people in a meaningful way�and in this school I have found the place and the method. The students here have what I call an inner fire. They�ve impressed me with the way they handle challenges. In fact, they inspire me. They�re honest and focused�and believe me, that�s not something you can fake.�

Burns� gift for spotting sincerity is a natural offshoot of his professional life, for in addition to his 25 years as a Denver municipal firefighter, he also practiced law for 25 years in Colorado. One reason he admires and wants to support struggling students is that he, too, struggled while earning his law degree. While working more than 80 hours a week as a firefighter, he somehow simultaneously wedged in law courses five nights a week at the University of Denver. Despite this grueling schedule, he emerged as valedictorian of his class in 1957. Before earning his doctorate of law, Burns graduated, in 1948, from Fordham University in New York City, having completed a fast-track three-year curriculum.  In 1966, he received an honor accorded to only 5% of the country�s attorneys: he was sworn in as a Member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Throughout his careers, Burns has been struck by the burdens and barriers women encounter in their personal and professional lives. �They didn�t call it the �glass ceiling� until the 1980s,� says Burns, �But it�s always been real. It�s still real today. Only three of the Fortune 500 
firms are run by a woman�and yet research shows that women make as good�and often better�managers and leaders than do men.�
 

Ronald A. Evans, dean of the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, shares Burns� belief that women have a vital place in corporate leadership. As CEO of Best Western International, the world�s largest hotel brand, for 18 years, Evans worked with hotel operators of both genders and respects the contributions of both. �It just doesn�t make good business sense � or people sense � to block the progress of half of your talent pool.� The hospitality industry, on the verge of becoming the world�s largest employer, is hungry for talented managers. Graduates of the NAU program commonly receive multiple job offers.

Ex-firefighter Richard B. Burns donated  $260,000 to the School of Hotel and Restuarant  Management at Northern Arizona University.  His goal: to help female students break the "glass ceiling."

Career opportunities have created a surge in student interest in NAU�s hospitality management degree program, which can be completed in Scottsdale and Tucson, as well as in Flagstaff.

The first three recipients of the Richard Barrett Burns scholarship are: junior Jennifer Russell and sophomores Julie Kiendra and Kathryn Morgan. Three more scholarships of $1500 each will be awarded in April, 2000, and every semester thereafter, into perpetuity. 

�You might not think an ex-firefighter would be able to make a gift of this size to education, � says Burns. �But if I can do it, perhaps others will follow suit. We need to invest in the next generations. Nothing would make me happier than to see these scholarship recipients succeed so well that their daughters choose careers in hotel and restaurant management � and find their way to NAU�s HRM. This is a premier program that does exactly what we need it to: build leaders of heart and competence who will make a difference wherever they go � and who will remember the �glass ceiling� only as part of the wrong-headed past.�