Jim Burack has joined the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, or DHSEM, as the division’s new deputy director.
“I am pleased to announce Jim as our new Deputy Director. He brings a diverse background across all of the division’s disciplines that is essential for supporting the success of our DHSEM teams,” said DHSEM Division Director Kevin Klein.
Burack will join the DHSEM on August 1. Burack’s public safety career in Colorado began in 1986, after interning in the Denver District Attorney's Office. After graduation from the University of Colorado Law School and Marine Corps active duty, he served as Milliken’s police chief and emergency management director from 2001 to 2014. During the 2013 floods — that devastated Milliken — Burack was an incident commander and he helped lead the town’s recovery.
In 2005, he was assigned to the Marine Corps liaison team for the U.S. Northern Command to the FEMA Rocky Mountain Region. He deployed for wildfires in California, a hurricane in the Virgin Islands, COVID response and national special security events.
In 2014, he was selected as chief of investigations for Colorado’s Department of Revenue, Marijuana Enforcement Division. In 2016, he was named director where he served until 2021.
Burack was a research fellow during the 2021-22 school year at the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard, London and University College London, and he helped lead a Police Scotland-US police executive development project with the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, DC-based association of police chiefs.
He retired as a Marine Corps colonel in 2021 with over 30 years of active and reserve service.
