»Jim & Kay Burra
- Chair of the Board of Trustees, Chapman University
- Chapman Board of Governors, Chapman University
- CEO and President, Endural
James P. Burra was born in Culver City, California, and grew up in the San Fernando Valley. At an early age, Jim realized his enjoyment of being a hands-on problem solver. He had an innate ability and a natural curiosity for understanding the mechanisms of how things worked. This curiosity was spurred by his father’s “let’s figure it out” attitude in teaching him how to fix everything mechanical and electrical.
While working part-time at the family business, Jim attended California State University, Northridge. He decided to major in pre-dentistry until he enrolled in an accounting course in his junior year. Jim described the class, “The professor was a Certified Public Accountant who ran an accounting practice. Mr. Dwight Call made the course come alive through his real-world business experience; theories were interlaced with stories.”
Jim and Kay met during a sorority/fraternity party as sophomores in college. They married in 1964 when Kay graduated college and began teaching elementary school. Jim continued with his college business courses and was recruited by his accounting professors to proctor and grade exams, and run the accounting lab to assist other students.
Upon graduating from CSUN in 1967, Jim passed the CPA exam in the first sitting. He began his career at Arthur Andersen Co., one of the “Big Eight” global accounting firms. During his career at Arthur Andersen, he continued to progress to the level of audit manager, serving clients in the manufacturing, electronics, financial services, real estate, and government contracting industries. In 1976, he worked on developing new auditing procedures calledTransaction Flow Auditing (TFA), which have since evolved to be an integral part of current auditing procedures.
In 1977, President Bill Coleman, a client, asked Jim to join Intercole. Jim’s role was to seek and screen acquisition candidates for the company. He soon became chief financial officer responsible for equity, debt, treasury, accounting, SEC compliance and tax administration. In 1985, Jim was part of a group that took Intercole private in a leveraged buyout (LBO).
In 1989, Jim acquired Endural in a leveraged purchase where he introduced a new line of after-market automotive products. Jim designed and was granted three patents for reusable plastics cases used for the shipping of engines and transmissions. The product was adopted by all the major original equipment makers (OEM's) in North America, and quickly became Endural's largest market. Jim sold the company in 2021, making the decision to fund the Burra School of Accounting and Finance.
While running Endural, Jim also served as Director of Semtech Corporation, an analog semiconductor manufacturing and marketing company traded on the NASDAQ system. Jim served as vice chairman of the board and chairman of the audit committee. He retired from the board in 2021, after 30 years of service.
The Burra School of Accounting and Finance naming was influenced by Jim and Kay’s youngest daughter, Laura, who graduated from Chapman University. Jim had attended an Argyros College Board of Counselors meeting where he was introduced to then-President Jim Doti. As a student, Laura was enrolled in a statistics course taught by Dr. Doti. Laura told her parents that Dr. Doti made the statistics course interesting and engaging, a pattern Jim and Kay have seen throughout Chapman.
Jim and Kay remember Dr. Doti’s impact on their daughter and many other Chapman students. Jim will always remember his accounting professor and the significant impact his professor made on Jim at California State University, Northridge. Jim and Kay Burra’s gift is representative of the importance of teaching and the influence professors can have in the world of a student.