MONTROSE, CO, September 15, 2025 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Kathryn R. Burke has been selected for inclusion in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

Ms. Burke calls herself a "Creative Inspirationist" and a "Renaissance Entrepreneur." Both terms fit. She is an artist and art teacher, an author and a publisher, a business consultant and a digital technician, and the successful owner of a business she devised and developed, which incorporates all those qualities and activities.

Historically, San Juan Publishing Group, Inc, the Colorado-based company she founded in 1993, focused on print publications—books, magazines, visitor and topic-specific guides with a focus on western history, the arts, and regional cultural amenities and activities. Throughout her tenure as president of San Juan Publishing Group, Inc., Ms. Burke has made significant contributions to the industry. Producing multiple magazines across the Four Corners and American southwest, her company, generated over $1 million annually with a portfolio that includes publications for the Four Corners region and historically significant tourist rail lines such as the Royal Gorge Route Railroad and the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

After stepping back from full-time magazine publishing to care for her late husband during his illness, she served as his advocate, learning all she could about his difficult illness. To understand it, then share that knowledge, she authored and published books (her own and other authors) on caregiving practices. Her illustrated, award-winning caregiving books were endorsed by groups such as the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers and used as a university teaching tool at east coast universities. During his illness she also worked full time as the marketing director for a real estate organization to help pay for his care.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and after her husband passed, Ms. Burke returned to publishing, shifting her focus from print to building an online presence. Based now in Colorado, and partnering with a company based in Hawaii, she builds, maintains, and hosts websites for local, national, and international clients. With a proven expertise in multimedia marketing and social media outreach, and a keen understanding of the exponential changes in economic projections, Ms. Burke has inspired a loyal following, advising and helping clients to achieve and maintain success in a complicated global economy.

Over the past twenty years, Ms. Burke's company has also achieved recognition as a book publisher. This September, "Promise," a book she published covering the exponential changes at the turn of the last century in the U.S. and the Balkans during WWI, has won an award—her fifth—from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. Although she publishes books on caregiving and the arts, her primary interest is western history. One, written by a wildlife officer who recorded "old timers" relating their experiences, comes packaged with an audio CD she produced of them telling their stories. Burke also published books written by two interpretive rangers at Little Bighorn National Monument. One, now in its fifth printing, comes packaged with a DVD she produced that includes live re-enactments of the battle and the author's mesmerizing "battle talk" available on CNN and other news channels. Ms. Burke often combines the print publication with a social media campaign and a website she designs and maintains, to help promote the book and its author. For the Little Bighorn retired ranger, a world-renowned historian on the subject, she built a site, SteveAdelsonLittleBighornTours.com that quickly leapt to the top of its category. With her help, he is booking tours a year ahead now.

Ms. Burke's interest in history is the basis for her keynote Power Point presentations given in various regional venues. Her most popular talk is about the "Shady Ladies' of the old west. She also speaks on indigenous cultures, hard-rock mining, narrow gauge railroads, and the Little Bighorn. Her stories are vivid and engaging and include pictorial representations designed like a magazine format. She draws a large audience wherever she speaks. For most presentations, she invites a local museum to present and participate with her. Ms. Burke feels community is important, and wherever possible works with local cultural organizations, including them in her projects and endeavors. She also volunteers her services, and her talks, to help support and promote them.

Burke has had a varied career, inclusive of creative, technical, and business pursuits. She began her career as an art teacher. After graduating from the University of Miami, she taught art in Florida, then in Madrid, Spain where she taught in private schools. Returning to the United States, she subbed as an art teacher, then worked full-time for an oil company headquartered on the east coast and owned by her husband's family. Ms. Burke was one of the few women in the United States to manage a petroleum business. During that time, she also took classes at the Wharton School of Business and worked with I.B.M. to develop a degree-day accounting system for fuel oil delivery. That initial technical expertise is what groomed her for designing and building websites. She recalls working with a "removable disc" bigger than a pizza and keyboard data-input machines, listening to the "clickity clack" as typists entered data into computers that filled a room rather than sat on a desk, or fit into your hand. She invested in the new technology which funded her early business ventures, when she moved to the west coast after the oil company was sold. In California, working with the Small Business Administration, she helped companies design business and marketing plans and achieve funding, which included cancer clinics across the border in Mexico. During that time, she was writing articles for local magazines, an activity that led to writing, then publishing when she moved to Colorado. As she had back east, during that time she was also making art and subbing as an art teacher.

Ms. Burke still retains her teacher's license, but today she uses it for teaching adult art classes, collaborating with former and current clients, conducting and marketing her classes at various locations in southwest Colorado. These include a winery, art gallery, golf course, library, Italian restaurant, senior center, and the local Warrior Resource Center, where she donates the tuition. Subject matter for many of her art classes is history: she loves showing students how to paint old mining structures and mountain trails though wildflowers and past waterfalls.

Highly regarded for her ability to help individuals recognize and embrace their creativity, Ms. Burke teaches art classes that attract participants from diverse backgrounds—including many from the medical profession who discover their artistic abilities for the first time under her guidance. Her classes foster a relaxed environment where attendees can enjoy the creative process, often with adult beverages and food, without the pressures of striving for perfection. Many students return for additional sessions, seeking respite from demanding careers and parenting, finding a supportive community through shared artistic pursuits.

Ms. Burke's professional affiliations include membership in the Colorado Independent Publishers Association, where she was honored with multiple Evvy Awards 2015 to the present. She was also active as a mentor and guest speaker with the Region 10 Area Agency on Aging. Equally committed to giving back through community service, Ms. Burke has invested two decades of volunteer work at the local senior center in Montrose, Colorado, where she presents on American and Western history and leads creative art programs. Additionally, she teaches classes at the local veteran's association and volunteers as needed in various community organizations. She has served as a marketing committee chair or board officer of several local chambers of Commerce, Women's Clubs, Writers Groups, and the Ouray County Ranch History Museum. Under a grant, she also served as the Assistant Director of the Museum of the Mountain West, for which she still maintains, as a volunteer, the website she designed for them. She also volunteers with the Montrose Historical Association and Museum, helping with marketing and social media, and has helped with promotion for the Silverton Historical Society, which is a source for much of the material in her popular "Shady Ladies of Silverton" talks. She recalls giving that presentation in Montrose in winter, when "Silvertonians" drove over mountain passes, in a snowstorm, to attend her talk.

Academically, Ms. Burke earned a Bachelor of Arts in art studies from the University of Miami and studied business at Wharton. The foundation provided by her education was further strengthened by formative advice from her father that guided her professionally—particularly during her time managing an oil company early in her career — and by the encouragement of both her parents who were also accomplished writers and involved in community creative endeavors. Her mother was a founding director of a theater on the Canadian/American border in Michigan. Her father began his career as a history teacher, before earning a graduate degree and turning to business, first working with General Electric, so the family moved frequently through the mid-west, then founding a company that manufactured rubber and plastic items. He was also an inventor, devising a process to print pictures on plastic, creating a long-lasting way of preserving memories.

On a personal level, Ms. Burke is proud of raising two accomplished children. Her son is an attorney, the hiring partner for an international law firm, and an Ironman podium finisher, Her daughter is a successful businesswoman, artist and yoga teacher running her own company while pursuing creative projects. Ms. Burke values the strong bonds within her family, all of whom support each other's athletic, business, and creative endeavors. Her interests include reading (6-10 books a week!), gardening, cooking, spending time in nature, especially near water, and relaxing with her cat she calls her Office Assistant.

Looking to the future, Ms. Burke aims to continue teaching art and creating more of her own work while encouraging students to showcase their conceptions alongside hers in future exhibitions. She will still publish books she finds interesting and work with her long-term Internet clients.

Her lifelong dedication to fostering creativity in others stands as her most notable achievement — a testament to her passion for community engagement throughout an accomplished career spanning education, publishing, authorship, business endeavors, and civic leadership. She will continue down the continually changing paths she created that draw on her life experiences as a "Creative Inspirations" and a "Renaissance Entrepreneur."

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