In an interview with Gongwer News Service, Burnett discussed how he moved back to his home state of California a little over a year ago to work for Google as head of their national agency team, overseeing the company's relationships with advertisers and search engine consultants. He had previously worked for DoubleClick, Inc. as the company's vice president for agency sales.

Burnett is a graduate of the University of Michigan (as is Google co-founder Larry Page), and has also received his masters of business administration from Harvard.

While he's getting reacquainted with the fall spectacle Michigan has to offer (though he says it's helpful to have New York and Boston winters in his background and his wife is a native of Michigan), he's also been busy churning through resumes and office sites as Google fulfills its promise to create 1,000 new jobs in a state economy that's hurting due to the decline in the automotive industry.

In response to a question on whether the media and political attention the company has received since making its announcement came as a surprise, Burnett said, "Yes and no. With Google you learn to expect a lot of excitement."

As the Internet search engine giant was preparing to lay stakes in Michigan, Burnett said he followed the state's ups and downs and knew "this would be big."

The announcement of Google's decision was big indeed. Gov. Jennifer Granholm, running for re-election this year in an economy her Republican challenger Dick DeVos says she fails to be a leader in, held a press conference in mid-July after news of buyouts for General Motors and Delphi workers were announced.

The scene in the Romney Building was more than just a group of reporters and camera crews coupled with the governor standing in front of a banner. There was the sea of youth dressed in white Google T-shirts with the company spelled out with the state logo replacing the third letter. They surrounded all the corners of the stage and filled the hallways as people left the building, and Granholm said the announcement meant jobs for them in the future.

Then of course came the ad from the state Democratic Party less than two weeks after the announcement. The ad credited Granholm for "putting her team to work," and diversifying the state's economy by bringing in those high-paying Google jobs. Republicans, in turn, said that the decision for Google to locate its AdWords division was more based on having a talent pool in the nearby university.

The company also had been running a small operation in Detroit prior to the Ann Arbor news.

In reflecting on the barrage of news articles and continued attention on the company as it opened its doors in downtown Ann Arbor a little over a week ago, Burnett said it may not have been intended that the company would be part of the political scene but Google thinks the location is a "great place for us to grow our business," and that all the support from residents on up to city and state officials has been "refreshing."

Because it was his first office opening with Google, Burnett said he couldn't compare it to others in the company's history, but said, "those conversations certainly helped with that (decision)," adding that continued dialogue only affirms Google's decision was the right one.

Google has set up shop in a 7,000 square foot, two-story building as a temporary office space until it can find a place to expand its operations.

Common to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, the office is equipped with colorful signs, exercise balls and lava lamps.

The office is a collegial environment, he said, similar to what other Google offices, many of which are located near major universities, are like. Google headquarters taps into nearby University of California-Berkley and Stanford.

The search is still on for a permanent facility, Burnett said, which will help make office space more akin to headquarters.

So far, 20 people have been hired, which includes a few transfers like himself, along with adding staff with graduates of UM and Michigan State University, along with some Michiganders who left the state and are now returning to work for the company.

Asked whether he has a specific number of people to hire before the year's end, Burnett said that the only timeline he's working on is the five-year mark and pointed people to the company's job listings.

"We are actively hiring; interviewing a lot of great candidates," he said.

Asked how he got involved in the job he has now, Burnett recalled his growing up in Silicon Valley, where his dad, an entrepreneur, always let his son answer phones or work on databases.

"Entrepreneurship was in my blood. Google appealed to me on that level," he said.

While he also was a professional tennis player for three years, Burnett said technology and the media world has always kept him enamored and being with Google meant being in the center of that world and impacting society.

"It married a lot of interests personally," he said.

Whether other high-tech industries will catch on to what Michigan has to offer to companies like Google, Burnett said he hasn't heard much too much response from the industry since the announcement.

But he also says that may be because he's too busy getting an office up and running.

"That's great if it follows," he said. "Hopefully it will have a positive effect for the community and state."

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