Jeremy Burton Builds Trust in Rooms Where Trust Is Scarce

Ask Jeremy Burton what he does, and he'll give you the practical answer first: permits, power, and infrastructure. Then he'll tell you what the work is really about.

"Burton Advisors, I believe, at its core is about relationships, and it's about dialogue and trust."

It's a striking claim from someone who works where government meets industry, a space many professionals assume runs on leverage and access. Burton sees it differently, and the reason is rooted in his faith and in his own history of falling short.

A Six-Year-Old in a Green Church

To understand how Burton works, you have to go back to a small church in Groesbeck, Texas, with bright green carpet and bright green pews. He was six years old. His Sunday school teacher, Ms. Carla, asked if he wanted to invite Jesus into his heart. He said yes and repeated the prayer after her.

"It was just the child standing with Ms. Carla, feeling the love of God and not understanding any of it. That childlike faith."

That moment is still his anchor. He keeps in touch with Ms. Carla and sends her a message every year or so. "God reminded me of you leading me to Jesus today on my run," he tells her. Those, he says, are his fastest runs, the ones when the Holy Spirit brings something to mind and pushes him forward.

It is an unusual picture of a government relations professional, a man who deals in contracts, hearings, and committee votes and keeps going back to a Sunday school entryway. But Burton sees no gap between the two. "God's truth is so simple," he says. He admits it took years to accept that. He started out chasing complexity and nuance. The older he gets, the more God confronts him with the basics.

The Voting Machine Guy Who Met Everyone

Before launching Burton Advisors at the start of 2026, Burton spent years working across Indiana's counties. At an election systems company, he was, in his words, "the voting machine guy in Indiana," so leaders from both political parties wanted time with him. He later sold Marion County its voting system and was brought into a leadership role in Indianapolis.

That vantage point gave him an unusual education in what drives public officials. What he learned runs against the cynicism many of us carry.

"Most of our elected leaders are good people with good hearts in both parties."

When leaders do go wrong, Burton doesn't point first to greed. He points to anxiety. Many people, he says, are shocked to be elected at all. They've had little success before that moment, and suddenly they hold real power without the context to carry it well.

He has watched this up close. A powerful Indiana politician once treated him harshly, did corrupt things, and ended up in state prison. Burton still felt God putting that man on his heart, and he sought a visit. The man declined. Burton's conviction hasn't changed.

"I have a hard time dismissing anyone because I know God loves them."

Why Redemption Comes Before Reputation

Burton is quick to say he doesn't feel worthy of the trust people have given him. He names his own personal failings as the reason he extends grace to others.

"I don't just care about the people who seem to do everything right, the people that seem to be performing well," he says. "I also care about the people who haven't performed well because I know what that's like."

His observation about faith in public life is worth pausing on. Some leaders, he says, accept Jesus but never read God's Word, and without that ongoing connection they lose the leading of the Holy Spirit. It's a diagnosis he applies with compassion rather than contempt.

It also explains how he rebuilt a company's reputation with Indiana's local officials. He didn't out-argue anyone. He cared about people before he asked for anything, and over time they decided to take a chance on him.

Start with the Neighbors, Not the Investor

Burton's faith shows up in his strategy as much as in his character. He recently wrote that in the age of AI, people still matter, and that conviction shapes how he advises communities weighing new development.

His counsel to local leaders is direct: don't wait until an investor walks in the door to talk to residents.

"We've got to meet with community members, with neighbors of sites that we want to see investment in, and we've got to start with them and ask them what is their dream, what is their vision. They are the ones who live there. They're the ones who are raising their children there."

He sees too many local leaders with their heads down, bracing for the loudest voices in the room. His model is former Carmel mayor Jim Brainard, who told Burton he never needed to fear the crowd at a public meeting because he had spent every election season knocking on doors and listening privately to people who didn't have time to attend.

That's the posture Burton wants to help officials recover. Communities need power generation to fill their industrial parks, and people understandably worry about safety and appearance. Burton believes leaders who cast a vision and listen first can hold their heads high and lead their towns in the right direction.

Letting God Widen the Field

Burton's calendar reaches beyond his day job. He serves as vice president of the Indy Healthcare Table, chairs the Indiana Afterschool Network, and participates in an energy advisory table. He says he never had much interest in healthcare until a longtime healthcare leader and mentor invited him in.

He reads that pattern as more than coincidence. "What I feel God is doing with this business I started at the beginning of 2026 is he's moving me into major spaces in our economy to educate me and prepare me to make a difference in those spaces."

Energy came first. Burton argues the country must roughly quadruple its generation over the next 20 years, and he points out that the energy powering modern life is a major reason life expectancy has climbed from the 30s and 40s a century ago to the 70s today.

Healthcare followed. He admires the American system but admits it is costly and wears out the nurses and doctors who carry it. Borrowing Winston Churchill's line about democracy, he calls it the worst system except for all the others, then adds that he believes it can be better. His clients include an AI healthcare company working on lower costs and better patient outcomes. He sees the connection between his first two clients clearly: AI runs on energy, and both can serve people.

He expects resistance, because every major economic shift unsettles those comfortable with the old way. His answer isn't fear. "Rather than being afraid of change, we ought to embrace it and work within that to make it have ultimate impact."

The larger goal, he says, is reconnecting corporations to communities, especially the rural and mid-sized cities that lost their factories, so families have more opportunity.

The commissioner looked at Jeremy Burton across a barn floor, surrounded by his farmhands, and said it plainly: "Jeremy, I can't vote for you."

It was an unpopular vote in a rural county. Burton's client had the stronger proposal, one that would do more for the residents. But the politics said no, and the man holding the vote had just said no too.

Most of us know that moment. The contract is slipping, the room has turned, and every instinct says to defend, argue, or quit. Burton did something else. He asked a question: "Are you a leader or are you a follower?"

"In that moment," he recalls, "I challenged the heart of that leader that God had placed in that position." The commissioner voted with him.

A Remnant After a Long Line of Brokenness

Burton's story is not a tidy one. His family history includes addiction, abuse, absence, prison, and early death. He is the first in his family in generations to go to college and law school. Today he has a wife, three children, and a career.

His Aunt Mag, who took him to church as a boy, told him something he never forgot: "Jeremy, you're a curse breaker."

He believes her. He also believes someone prayed for him long before he could pray for himself. His grandmother told him she used to fall asleep between her Pentecostal grandparents, listening to them pray for everyone and everything. When he asked whether they prayed for future generations, she said yes.

"God has caused a remnant in this bloodline. And somebody prayed for that."

That is why he prays for his own children's children now. He sees it as part of the work, not a separate devotional life.

People Matter More Than Politics

Burton has won and lost many votes. His habit after a loss is to keep the relationship. "I never give up on the relationship," he says. "People matter more than politics and what they can do for you."

Part of what steadies him is Proverbs 21:1, which says God directs the heart of a king like a watercourse. He first read it in an Abraham Lincoln writing that compared the path of a river to the winding path of leadership. Burton takes it as permission to stop panicking. God is at work in the hearts of leaders, including ones he disagrees with, even when the direction is hard to see.

It also shapes his sales philosophy, which has nothing to do with tricks. "If they don't like you, they're not going to buy anything from you," he says. You earn the right to sell your company by first being someone worth trusting.

He once represented a company that an entire urban county seemed to dislike. Months earlier he had met a local businessman over coffee, with no agenda. That man ended up on the committee voting on the contract. "I didn't know that," Burton says. "God knew that." They won the vote.

Burton led that fight with the facts about the product and services. He also had no history with the old bad blood, just a willingness to tell the truth.

Years earlier, as a vendor in the world of election administration, he sponsored an annual conference lunch. When organizers asked what he wanted in return, he said he only wanted to say the blessing before the meal. Eventually he was inducted into the Indiana Voter Registration Hall of Fame, an honor he describes as unheard of for a vendor.

He is realistic about the settings he works in. Not everyone in government shares his faith, so he doesn't always lead with Jesus. "You always lead with love and a sincere interest," he says.

Asking God Before Asking the Machine

Burton is a heavy user of AI, as most small business owners are now. He believes it will do real good, especially in healthcare, where he represents two technology companies. He wants Christians to engage with it boldly and without fear.

But he caught himself reaching for it by reflex. "The Holy Spirit convicted me one day and said, you know, you ought to ask God about that."

"AI is a tool, it is not a person. AI cannot replace our thinking, our strategy, our human instinct."

His bigger worry is not that AI replaces people. It is that people with an agenda will use it to shape how everyone else thinks.

Partnering Across the Aisle for the City You Love

Burton describes himself as a conservative in a very liberal Indianapolis. He cares deeply about the city, which has hundreds of abandoned industrial sites and thousands of vacant homes. He sees large data center investments as one way to bring in roads, infrastructure, teacher bonuses, and community improvements, and he is frustrated that some cities have simply put moratoriums on them.

So he found a liberal partner with credibility among the movement opposing these projects. Together they help cities talk about the investments and negotiate real community benefits. "Why am I doing that?" he asks. "I'm doing that because I love my city."

Faith in the Darkest Hour

Burton doesn't pretend any of this is easy. He is honest that consistency is a struggle, and that faith is hardest when the money isn't coming in, the contract has failed, and the car won't start.

"When it's the hardest, when it's the scariest, that's when God's doing the most."

He told me he was reminded of that recently when he heard Nick Vujicic, who was born without arms or legs, speak at his church. Burton found himself saying, "I have two arms and two legs. I ought to be excited about today."

We can all use that kind of perspective. The person in front of you, whether commissioner, competitor, or colleague, is someone God loves. The vote may go your way or it may not, but the relationship is worth keeping either way.

What We Can Take Into This Week

Burton's story offers a few practical moves for any leader who works with people in power or people affected by it:

Ask God first. Before you open the tool, take thirty seconds to ask Him.
Pray for the generations behind you. Someone prayed for you, and someone will need your prayers.
Replace fear with faith before the hard meeting. Pray, then walk in curious about the person across from you.
Listen to the people closest to the decision. Ask neighbors, customers, and teammates about their dreams before presenting your plan.
Look for the anxiety behind the behavior. Before you write someone off, ask what pressure or lack of context may be driving them.
Hold your own failures honestly. Burton's humility about his shortcomings is the source of his grace toward others.
Say yes to the unfamiliar room. God may be educating you for a field you haven't yet learned to love.