Denise Vitali Burne is President and Dealer Principal of Matt Burne Honda, Scranton’s original and family- owned Honda dealership, and President and Founder of Break the Silence, a non-profit organization she established for inpatient safety and suicide prevention.

Denise received her Bachelor of Arts Degree Cum Laude in Criminology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her Master of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Baltimore. Denise served as an Adult Parole/Probation Agent for the State of Maryland before joining the Baltimore Mayoral staffs of William Donald Schaeffer and then Kurt Schmoke as the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Planner for the City of Baltimore.

In 1988, she returned to Scranton and joined her family’s business, then Burne Oldsmobile, Cadillac Honda Company. In 2004, after the tragic passing of her brother, the Burne family rededicated the dealership in his honor, renaming it Matt Burne Honda, and Denise stepped up to the helm to oversee the operations of the business.

Denise established Break the Silence in 2007 in response to her brother, Matthew’s, death while an inpatient at The Meadows of Wickenburg in Arizona. Break the Silence (www.break-the-silence.org) exists to educate the public about how to protect their loved ones who are in crisis and/or at risk for self-harm and/or suicide.

Ms. Vitali Burne was the keynote speaker at the 2009 Philadelphia Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk; has been a major sponsor of the Pick Up The Phone Tour; has been featured on several radio shows/interviews; and assisted author, Deborah Ball, with investigative information for the book, HOUSE OF VERSACE: The Untold Story of Genius, Murder and Survival. Denise has also taught adjunct at various colleges and universities including Marywood College, Keystone College, Lackawanna Jr. College, The University of Baltimore and Towson University.