Director
Minerals Management Service

Johnnie Burton was born, raised and educated in French Algeria. Her field of studies was languages. She is a trained foreign language teacher. She came to the United States in 1963 and to Wyoming in 1966. She and her husband Guy lived and raised their family in Casper. In 1979 Johnnie, who had stopped teaching, started Hotline Energy Reports which was an oil and gas reporting service covering eleven Rocky Mountain states. The subscription service could deliver data either in hard copy, microfiche or digital formats. In 1984, Hotline Energy Reports merged with Dwight's Energydata of Dallas, Texas. Johnnie stayed on as a vice-president of the Corporation until 1989.

From 1978 to 1982 Johnnie served on the Natrona County school board. In 1982 she was elected to the state House of Representatives where she served for three terms. From late 1989 until early 1995 she spent two thirds of the year in Northwest Arkansas where she worked on literary translations and taught at the University of Arkansas, and one third of the year in their home in Jackson.

She joined the cabinet of Governor Geringer as Director of the Revenue Department in January 1995 and in June 1995, the Liquor Commission asked her to act as Director until the legislature addressed the Issue. In March 1996, the legislature dissolved the Liquor Commission and made the liquor operations a division of the Department of Revenue under Johnnie's stewardship. The Department of Revenue is responsible for collecting all mineral severance taxes, all excise taxes including sales/use, inheritance, tobacco and alcohol taxes. In addition, the department certifies the taxable value of utilities and mineral production to local governments for their ad valorem tax assessments.