Highway Superintendent Garrett Burke, Town of Vernon

Lori Lovely – PROFILE CORRESPONDENT - September 2026

This is Garrett Burke's first year as highway superintendent of the town of Vernon, but the 38-year-old has experience that belies his age and tenure.

Approximately a week after graduating from high school, the young Burke started working for the highway department as a laborer. He rose through the ranks to become a truck driver, equipment operator and foreman before being appointed to the superintendent position by the town board after his former boss retired.

“I know every job here,” Garrett said. “It helps a lot in my new position.”

The young superintendent's experience dates back even before he was hired. His great-grandfather worked for the state, his grandfather was highway superintendent for 34 years and his father worked for the department for 30 years. His only brother worked for the department for a few years before joining the Navy.

As a fourth-generation highway department employee, Garrett was hanging around the shop and riding with his grandfather and father in their snowplows as long as he can remember.

“I was here with my grandfather before I worked here,” he said. “I knew what I wanted to do since I was a kid. It feels natural.”

He firmly believes that “this is what I'm meant to do.”

The Burke family's roots go deep in the town of Vernon and Vernon Center, where the highway superintendent was born. Located in Oneida County, in the center of the state, the town was founded in 1794 by Josiah Bushnell, a European settler relocating from Massachusetts. Officially formed from parts of Augusta and Westmoreland in 1802, Vernon was once part of the original Oneida Reservation in 1859.

Development was largely stimulated by the Genesee Trail, which ran east to west through the town. In 1800, the road was chartered as the Seneca Turnpike toll road.

Today, the town has a population of roughly 5,400 people. Dairy farming remains the biggest industry, but the area attracts visitors to its casinos, antiques shops and Utica Rome Speedway. Not far from Syracuse and Oneida Lake, Vernon is off the beaten path near scenic state parks and forests.

Vernon is where Garrett met his wife, Lacie. The couple grew up together; she was the daughter of a friend of the family. It was Garrett's grandfather who encouraged a romantic relationship between the childhood friends. They married in 2015 and have four children: Charliee, 8; Sophie, 5; Henry, 4; and Riley, 2.

Before getting married, he bought an old cow pasture and built a barn on it. In the barn was an apartment where he lived. After he and Lacie married, he “built a house and filled it with kids.”

Plows, Preventive Maintenance

Winters in Vernon can be extremely cold and snowy, but Garrett finds satisfaction in clearing snow — perhaps his favorite duty as superintendent.

“I love plowing snow,” he said, adding that he loved it more when he was a child riding with his father or grandfather as they plowed, or when he was earning overtime pay. Nevertheless, he said how much he enjoys being out on the road, with nobody around, listening to the radio as he moves snow.

“It's just you and the truck. It's a simple job that produces immediate results.”

The town is divided into four plow routes, each of which takes approximately three hours. He takes pride in knowing that the residents recognize that Vernon has the “best roads around in the winter,” especially during snowy years like this past winter.

The town's sand and salt dome, built in the 1980s, holds 6,500 tons in preparedness for whatever amount of snow it receives. There are four equipment storage buildings that keep all the equipment under cover, and there's also a shop built in the 2000s, where the crew works on the equipment.

“In the fall, every truck is taken apart to have their brakes cleaned and lubricated, and the fluids changed and greased,” Garrett said.

The plow equipment is worked on if necessary. “We work on most things in-house,” he said.

The superintendent considers himself fortunate to have equipment that's in good shape.

“We had old equipment when I came. A lot of it was broken. We were always fixing it.”

The town instituted a rotation plan to keep the fleet fresh. “Ten years is old for a plow,” he said.

Vernon's equipment list includes:

• Two John Deere loaders

• Gradall

• 2021 Western Star

• 2025 Western Star

• 2026 Western Star

• 2020 Mack single axle

• 2018 Mack 10-wheeler

• 2009 Mack 4x4

• 2004 Mack single axle

• 1989 International bucket truck

• Broom

• Three mower tractors

• Four pickup trucks

• F550 dump truck

• Two dump trailers

The department used to build its own snowplows and sanders, dubbed the “OURWAY” brand. Garrett said it saved a lot of money. However, now that most of those employees have retired, they don't have enough skilled workers to do it anymore.

Except for one piece of specialized equipment: the shoulder machine, which significantly speeds up putting shoulders on new and existing roads. Previously, crews dumped material in the road, then had to scrape it with a pickup plow to the shoulder. “It was messy,” Garrett said.

A fabricator at heart, Garrett, along with equipment operator, Will Decker, designed a prototype that bolts to the side of a dump truck and funnels the material into a chute that deposits the material on the shoulder.

“We run the sander,” Garrett said. “The chain dumps the material into the chute, which drops it into the shoulder machine.”

Initial use indicated that a few changes were needed. They made a new model, adding an air cylinder to lift it up and down, and putting wheels on it so it could roll on the road. It is adjustable for the width of the shoulder, up to 30 in. and even folds up for travel.

Now, three employees can do the job that previously required the whole crew: one guy in the truck, one with a broom to sweep and one in a pickup rolling it down.

“It works great,” Garrett said with pride. “I'm very happy with it.”

He added that one of the neighboring towns wants one.

Making Changes

“I see problems and come up with a solution,” Garrett said.

His solutions extend beyond building equipment to other areas of the job, too.

The department's health insurance plan included a mandatory probationary period during which new employees paid an elevated premium for six months, but the superintendent quickly realized that many of them couldn't afford it. One guy even left because of it.

He worked with the town board to eliminate the probationary period, which dropped the premium's cost. That made all the difference in hiring. He now has three new employees and is looking for one more to bring his crew to full staff at eight.

“Every highway department has trouble hiring,” he said.

To overcome that challenge, he has adopted a different approach from his former boss, who focused on hiring truck drivers.

“I just hired three laborers I can build into truck drivers with training. I have no problem training anybody.”

In fact, that's one way to make sure the work gets done the way he wants it.

One of his new hires was a chef.

“This is a new line of work for him,” Garrett said. “I give everybody a chance. I don't care about their background as long as they're able-bodied.”

He pointed out that the former chef is “flourishing” in his new role at the highway department.

The current roster includes:

• Dan Greene, deputy

• Willy Decker, equipment operator

• Josh Jacobs, truck driver

• David Belvick, truck driver

• Zachary Adams, mechanic

• Lance Boice, laborer

• Nicholas Sebeck, laborer

Everyone works 7 a.m.-3 p.m., November-April and 6 a.m.-4 p.m. April-November. Their primary summertime duties include regular road maintenance and mowing roadsides. Garrett's position is shifting from the hands-on job working alongside the crew to one involving more paperwork, problem-solving and interacting with the community.

“I was one of them [the crew] before taking over as superintendent,” Garrett said. “I still go out on the road with them, but now there's more paperwork to do.”

The hardest adjustment he's had to his new role is working in the office because he's a man who loves being outside. However, he wants to give the crew space to do the job without micromanaging, so he busies himself with other tasks while they tackle routine maintenance.

He insists that they are all friends because, he said, “you've got to have a good relationship with the guys if you're going to call them at 2 a.m. to plow snow. I also feel it is important to harbor a good working relationship with the neighboring towns and villages. We are all in this together. Any time we can help one another, that's a good thing.”

Work Detail

Together, the crew is responsible for maintaining 119.46 lane mi. — 44.06 of them for another municipality — and six bridges. All the roads are paved, but Garrett is following the blacktop schedule to ensure the roads are in good shape. Most of that work was completed by late spring, including adding shoulders, fixing washouts from storm damage and replacing worn or faded signage.

The work has now shifted to culverts.

“We have a habit of doing next year's projects this year,” Garrett said.

On the roads scheduled for blacktop next year, he is busy repairing ditches, cutting trees and replacing culverts in preparation.

“All the pipes in town are the same age, and are going to need replacing,” he said.

This year's agenda calls for 11 culverts to be replaced on three roads. He estimates that there are at least 100 culverts in need of replacement. There are so many that the crew is simply starting at one end of town and working their way across to the other end.

With his signature style of planning ahead, Garrett is installing plastic culverts because “they last forever; no rotting,” he said.

The plastic culverts are comparable in price to the steel ones previously used, so it's a smart move, making the most of his $1,665,291 budget (CHIPS allotment: $152,767).

The new culverts also will be bigger in order to handle heavy rainstorms. Garrett will replace 12-in. culverts with 15-in. ones, and 15-in. culverts with 24-in. ones.

“We need more flow. The bigger sizes should be able to handle it.”

Campaigning Without Contenders

Garrett will stand for his first election in November, although he will run unopposed because the potential opponents failed to file their paperwork in time.

“It takes a lot of the stress off,” he said.

While he runs this year to finish out his former boss' term, he will have to run again next year because the board of elections requires elected officials to align with the presidential election. Although he's a little more nervous about that, Garrett believes in his chances of success.

“My family name is known around town,” he said, adding that “you gotta' know the job to do the job.”

His 20 years in the department should serve him well.

A member of groups like NYS Highway Superintendents and Oneida County Highway Superintendents, Garrett takes the job to heart. As his wife said, “Garrett's one of the most hard-working and dedicated people I know for the job. He truly tries his hardest to benefit the community wherever he can, and I couldn't think of a better person for the job.”

Garrett said the job of highway superintendent is everything he thought it would be and he is enjoying it. If he has any regrets, it's that his father and grandfather didn't live to see him in this position. His grandfather passed away shortly before he was appointed, and his father died suddenly several years ago while on the job.

“It was tough,” Garrett said. “The worst part is the shock. He was in his 50s. I thought you had to be old to die.”

Whether he wins his next few elections and extends his career with the highway department or is forced to walk away while still a young man, Garrett hopes that he is living up to the standards his father and grandfather set. But he's really hoping to stick around a while.

“I never wanted to do anything else,” he said. “I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't with the highway department.”