Burghart Turner is a lifelong resident of Plaquemines Parish. He graduated from Port Sulphur High School in 1981 and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps that same year.
In 1985 he was hired by Chevron, where he would spend the next thirty-one years before retiring in 2016. Over that career he worked as a roustabout, an aviation and marine dispatcher, a Transportation Coordinator, a Quality Improvement Coordinator, a Health and Safety Coordinator, and a certified port security officer — a path that took him from the deck to the desk where safety and standards are set.
He served on the Plaquemines Parish Council from 2007 to 2014. Those years covered some of the hardest chapters in the parish’s modern history. He assisted many families with their recovery after Hurricane Katrina and the hurricanes that followed, and again after the BP oil spill.
Burghart accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior while serving in the Marine Corps and has been serving Him ever since. He is the Pastor of Port Sulphur Baptist Church. He has participated in mission trips in Kenya and China, and has traveled to Europe on many occasions.
His work on port development has been international in scope. He has met with leaders in Honduras to discuss the Port of Cortés partnering with Plaquemines Parish Government. In 2009 he met with the President of the International Association of Ports and Harbors, who was also second in command at the Port of Mombasa; the Port of Mombasa was willing to partner with the Port of Plaquemines. Geraldine Knatz, then president of the American Association of Port Authorities, offered her support and to roll out the red carpet to assist with port development in Plaquemines.
Today he continues to pastor, to serve, and to work for the parish that has been his home for his entire life.