Meet Reed

Hello there - Reed Burr here. I am a Structural Engineer with a passion for music, gardening, and finding unique solutions to complex problems, both in structures and in life. I love "The Lord of the Rings", and would be perfectly content to live my life as a Hobbit, complete with a cozy, quirky home and a lush vegetable garden. I also enjoy being outside any time I can. I am actively trying to convince Rosa that soccer really is "the beautiful game", and I think that any season where the weather is suitable for hiking is a good season. I am fascinated by languages, and try my best to keep my Spanish fluent while learning about other languages like Maori. I love my family and spend as much time as possible with them when I am not at work.

I am the 2nd oldest in my family of five siblings, and was close to my brothers and sisters growing up. As kids, we spent a lot of time at my Grandma Snow's house cooking homemade pizzas, tending to the vegetable and fairy gardens, and trying to beat the Southern Utah heat with Silvermint Bars. I was born and raised in the same house, and grew a deep love for the desert. The red rocks, sound of toads on a warm summer night, and desert monsoons served as a stunning backdrop to my childhood. My parents had a lot of creative traditions for holidays like making leprechaun traps for St. Patrick's day, celebrating my grandpa's birthday on New Year's at a cabin near Cedar City, and participating in the Dickens Festival. I also was able to raise sheep for 4H, and appreciated the both the hard work and tender care for animals that I learned from raising and showing them.

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My dad is a science teacher, and his father was also a teacher, so education was a big part of my life as a kid. I always pushed myself to excel, and learned at a young age that I had a passions for inventing and engineering. Some of that may have also come from my grandpa Snow, who drafted the steel designs for many structures in the St. George area. I remember seeing him pouring over his drafting table as a kid, and was fascinated by that process.

As I grew, so did my desire to prove myself, and when I hit middle and high school, I took up many hobbies and activities. I loved playing soccer, running cross country and track, playing guitar and composing on the piano, singing in choir, and participating in student council and our City Youth Council.

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My family and my hometown also gave me the opportunity to travel frequently  as a teen. I loved our family vacations, especially to southern California, where my mom is originally from. I have fond memories of the smell of street food wafting over Santa Monica pier, searching for shells at Laguna Beach, sea kayaking, and (of course) Disneyland. I also went to Japan as a student ambassador to our sister city, and to several countries in Europe as well as New York City and Boston for various school trips. I deeply appreciate the worldview that I gained from those experiences, and loved the opportunity to learn from other cultures all around the world.

I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and after high school I decided I wanted to share my love of God with others, so I elected to serve a 2 year mission. I was asked to serve at the southernmost tip of Argentina - a land filled with beautiful mountains, glacial views, incredible meats, penguins and guanacos, and some of the best people I have ever known.

I especially loved the opportunities that my mission gave me to teach children, and deeply enjoyed sharing our belief that family relationships can be eternal with the families I met in Argentina. My mission was hard in many ways as well, but both the good and the bad taught me how to love others and see them the way that Jesus Christ would see them.

After my mission, I came back to Southern Utah for a few short weeks before moving up to Utah State University in Logan. All that time in the cold in Argentina prepared me for the harsh Cache Valley winters. Luckily, that first winter gave me the opportunity to really get to know my future wife. From snowball fights with our entire complex to building giant snowmen to jumping into icy rivers, Mercedes has an energy that just makes you want to come along for the ride, and I'm so glad I braved the cold for it.

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After we got married, it took a few more years for us to finish up college. Although our dream of moving to New Zealand after school was crushed by the pandemic, we were grateful for my job in Salt Lake City as a Structural Engineer when our daughter came along. I particularly enjoy the opportunities that my career has given me to give back to our community through service projects, as well as being able to work with people from all over the world. However, the best part of my job is the flexibility that it gives me to spend as much time with my two girls as possible. I love the little family that Mercedes and I have built, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity I have to be a father.