Burt served as the first full-time city traffic engineer in the United States in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1924 to 1930.  He was city traffic engineer for Philadelphia from 1930 to 1933.  In 1933 he started a 31 year career as the Director of Traffic Engineering and Safety of the American Automobile Association at their national headquarters in Washington, DC. 

He then became the Executive Director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety for 1964 through 1966.  Starting in 1967 until the mid part of 1970 he was the Executive Director for the Institute of Traffic Engineers, an organization that he had helped found and one that he had served, of course, as the second president from 1932 to 1934.  He was on the initial Board of Direction as Director in 1930-1931 and was Vice President, 1931 to 1932.

The Burton W. Marsh Award was established in his honor at the 1970 Annual Meeting of ITE.  His leadership is unequaled in ITE.  His achievements are also recognized by others as he was recipient in 1961 of a Doctor of Engineering Honorary Degree from Worcester Polytechnic as well as being recipient of the Roy W. Crum Award for Distinguished Service from the Highway Research Board, the Paul G. Hoffman Award for Distinguished Professional Service to Safety, and the Theodore M. Matson Award for outstanding contribution to the advancement of traffic engineering.  He was recipient of the Arthur Williams Gold Medal Memorial Award of the World Safety Research Institute in 1970.