by Christina Egbert<\/strong><\/p>\n Adam Burtner \u201817 planned out his entire life when he was six years old: He was going to become President of the United States.<\/p>\n For the next 15 years he worked to make that possible.<\/p>\n He paid close attention to political news, from local to federal. He tried to convince other Brownsburg High School students to vote as soon as they were old enough. His senior class voted him \u201cMost Likely to Become President.\u201d (Obviously.)<\/p>\n He participated in Boys State, which led him to Boys Nation, which led him to Washington DC, where he debated healthcare with President Barack Obama\u2014a man with whom he didn\u2019t always agree but certainly respected.<\/p>\n He majored in rhetoric at Wabash, with minors in political science and religion, and was a Wabash Democracy and Public Discourse (WDPD) Fellow for three years.<\/p>\n He interned with Mayor Greg Ballard, then worked on Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb\u2019s transition team.<\/p>\n The political path to the presidency couldn\u2019t have been clearer, and everybody saw it.<\/p>\n But Adam Burtner chose eggs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On a frigid morning<\/strong> in early December, Burtner hops into the cab of the refrigerator truck he\u2019s been loading in Noblesville since before 8 a.m. He pulls out his phone for directions.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people always thought my passion was politics,\u201d he says, slowly and smoothly accelerating in a truck carrying 156,000 eggs. \u201cBut what people don\u2019t realize is all that is driven by a sheer desire to have impact on communities and change people\u2019s lives for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n Helping create public policies seemed the obvious choice. By March of his senior year, Burtner already had job opportunities with the Indiana governor\u2019s office, a lobbying firm, and alumnus Jeff Perkins\u2019 firm Huntbridge in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n But then he grabbed coffee with Jimmy Owens \u201906, the former chief of staff for Jeff Simmons, senior vice president of Eli Lilly and Company and president of Lilly\u2019s Elanco Animal Health division.<\/p>\n Owens saw another opportunity. Just that morning he had been sent a job spec for an executive director for a program Simmons had helped start at Elanco. Hatch for Hunger is a nonprofit that partners with egg producers to provide central Indiana food pantries with thousands of eggs. In 2017 Elanco decided to turn the project into a standalone organization. That meant it needed a director.<\/p>\n Owens put Burtner in touch with the hiring director for Hatch for Hunger, and within a week and a half, it was interview, offer, and acceptance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just spoke to me,\u201d Burtner says. \u201cThe mission spoke to me first because I know how pressing of an issue food security is. To be right out of college and be asked to run something so substantial\u2014it was an opportunity I couldn\u2019t pass up.<\/p>\n \u201cPlus, I want to learn from the best, and I really rely on the group at Elanco who are part of the board of directors for support and guidance. And Jeff Simmons is a nationally recognized leader in food security and animal health, and, as a mentor, there\u2019s nobody better.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Burtner just misses a stoplight,<\/strong> visibly frustrated that the truck won\u2019t go over 55 mph, even with his foot pushing the gas pedal practically into the floor.<\/p>\n He points out that when he took on the title of Executive Director of Hatch for Hunger, it also meant \u201csole employee.\u201d Yet he had everything Hatch for Hunger needed to really get off the ground.<\/p>\n WDPD had given him plenty of experience dealing with pressing problems and finding solutions.<\/p>\n His political background helped him understand how policy, like the recently passed tax reform bill, affects nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n Being one of the first interns at Huntbridge and working with Perkins \u201989 showed him how business is cultivated through relationships.<\/p>\n Burtner says he was excited about the opportunity. Anxious, too. Three weeks after starting his job, he met with his board of directors for the first time. He felt pretty good about it. But two days later he broke out in hives and his throat began to close up. Thinking he was having an allergic reaction, he rushed to the doctor.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t allergies; it was a panic attack.<\/p>\n \u201cThey threw a lot at me in terms of what they were wanting to do in 2017, how we\u2019re going to grow the rest of the year, and it scared me to death,\u201d Burtner recalls. \u201cI had no clue how it was going to happen. So I broke down. I thought, There is no way I am going to figure this out.\u201d<\/p>\n He winces as the truck hits a pothole, recalling one of his first deliveries and arriving at the pantry, opening the cargo box door, and finding all the cartons had fallen. He says he\u2019s confident the poles and reinforcements he bought to keep his cargo of eggs from falling over will work.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I took the job, I knew nothing about agriculture or eggs or nonprofit. I felt super unqualified. I still do. I\u2019m still drinking from a fire hose.\u201d<\/p>\n Burtner\u2019s mentor, Marcus Casteel, claims just the opposite is true.<\/p>\n \u201cAdam is way over-qualified in many different areas,\u201d says Casteel, associate pastor at the church where Hatch for Hunger is headquartered. \u201cThose gifts he has, he\u2019s able to take those and do a lot of great things.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since starting in June 2017,<\/strong> Burtner has increased egg donations from Rose Acre Farms, the second largest egg producer in the world, from 5,400 dozen eggs a month to 20,000. Hatch for Hunger has brought on many more food pantries, received corporate sponsorships from businesses and restaurants, and added three new employees. That\u2019s exactly what his board asked Burtner to do at that first meeting, but they wanted him to get all of it done by the end of 2017. He got it done by September of that year (and egg donations are currently 50,000 dozen eggs\/month).<\/p>\n \u201cI was just trying to figure out how to keep the lights on, let alone grow it. But that showed me that it\u2019s not as hard as I thought at first if you put your mind to it.\u201d<\/p>\n As of July 2018, Hatch for Hunger has expanded to three more states: Arizona, Wisconsin, and Missouri. By 2020, Burtner plans to be in five more states: Iowa, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.<\/p>\n By 2025, nationwide.<\/p>\n Every state having its own executive director moves Burtner up to CEO.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m only 22 years old. It\u2019s not about the title at all, but there are not very many people right now who have the opportunity to learn like I have,\u201d Burtner says. \u201cWe have a great team, and though we experience a lot of growing pains, we\u2019re all learning to roll with the punches as they come. I\u2019m very blessed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re driven by something that\u2019s not a bottom line, it gives you a lot of flexibility to figure out how we impact more families. That\u2019s what drives your decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Burtner pulls into<\/strong> a food pantry\u2019s driveway an older woman named Bonnie walks out and shouts, \u201cThe Egg Man is here!\u201d<\/p>\n Burtner steps out of the truck, walks straight to her and gives her a huge hug.<\/p>\n \u201cHow are you doing, gorgeous?\u201d<\/p>\n One of the other food pantry directors has Adam listed in her phone as \u201cAdam Eggs.\u201d<\/p>\n Burtner\u2019s mother is still not over the irony of it all.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s a secret; I never used to like eggs,\u201d he says. \u201cMy mom was like, \u2018I used to try to get you to eat a fried egg every morning before school, and you hated it. Now you\u2019re the egg guy!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes, when he raises the back of the delivery truck, he sees only huge boxes of cartons to unload, with numerous stops still left to go.<\/p>\n But if he slows down enough, he\u2019ll see a carton of one dozen eggs for what it really is:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the mom who puts a hard-boiled egg in her kid\u2019s lunch every day. It\u2019s the woman from Venezuela who works as a janitor and loves to bake. It\u2019s families who, at Thanksgiving and Christmastime, were so excited to have eggs because they always had deviled eggs when they were growing up, and they were able to have them this year too.\u201d<\/p>\n Burtner\u2019s phone is still in his lap to keep his directions within reach. He\u2019s still getting used to driving to these food pantries, and yet completely content at the same time.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But what does this<\/strong> mean for six-year-old Adam Burtner? The one who dreamed that\u2014no, knew that \u2014he was going to be president someday?<\/p>\n There\u2019s no set-in-stone plan anymore. But there are certainly still goals.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a very well-kept secret.\u201d He laughs. \u201cBetween Wabash and everybody else, it\u2019s like, \u2018When is he going to run?\u201d<\/p>\n Burtner says that if he does run, he\u2019d like to be asked instead of forcing it himself. He guesses he\u2019ll start at state senate, and then, after that, maybe mayor of Indianapolis? Governor of Indiana? (He\u2019s already worked in both offices!)<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be wherever I can keep my moral compass and have the most impact on people without losing my heart for it.\u201d<\/p>\n He never once thought of Hatch for Hunger as a stepping stone for political aspirations, but, when that time does come, he\u2019ll be a different politician because of it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to come in as somebody who says they know everything, tries to fix things, but has never seen the problems. I\u2019ve been super privileged and blessed to never have had to go to a food pantry. I grew up in Brownsburg. I went to Wabash. I\u2019m a white male. But I want to have credibility to say that I\u2019ve seen this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got ideas for how to fix it,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He seems destined for a life in politics, but Adam Burtner\u2019s path is already taking some unexpected turns\u2014in an egg truck. by Christina Egbert Adam Burtner \u201817 planned out his entire life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-videos"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/09\/adam-eggs-standing-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4292,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions\/4292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}