Mike "Burma" Rizzi

Mike Rizzi, beloved husband, father, son, brother, friend, and legendary volunteer at Berkeley's KALX-FM, passed away in Oakland, California, on February 4, 2025, at the age of 63.

Born September 13, 1961, in Newton, Massachusetts, Mike possessed curiosity and creativity that shaped a colorful life rich in family, music and community. He earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and went on to complete a master's degree in control systems at the University of California, Berkeley. It was at Berkeley that Mike found his true calling—serving for over 40 years as a volunteer at KALX-FM, where he was a distinctive DJ, a dedicated leader, and meticulous music librarian.

Mike lived a life brimming with enthusiasm. As a teenager, he was an avid cyclist, skateboarder and skier, serving on the ski patrol at the Blue Hills ski area near his hometown. As an adult, he collected cacti and succulents, cultivated an organic garden (the bounty of which he shared generously with family and friends), satiated guests' palates as a chef, and skied double black diamond slopes. He was an avid Post-it-noter (having said that his to-do list was "more than 16,600 items long"), and he had a uniquely endearing hobby of collecting airline barf bags—one of the many dimensions of his sense of humor, which also included attestations to his "naturally blue hair."

Originally trained as a mechanical engineer, Mike's work on an innovative wind turbine design team formed the basis of his Master's thesis on creating real-time microprocessor-based control systems. He was deeply schooled in C++ and agile programming practices; managed large development projects for Kaiser Permanente; provided lean coaching for Adobe, UC Berkeley, and the U.S. Veterans Administration; coached teams in eXtreme Programming with Industrial Logic, and did live pair programming on Twitch.

Mike's early love of music grew into a passion for radio broadcasting, first at Amherst's WMUA, and more deeply at Berkeley's KALX. His taste was vast and eclectic, as was his music collection and the long list of shows he attended. He toured Italy with musician John Zorn, and served as webmaster for Zorn's music and arts nonprofit, Tzadik. Mike's legacy lives on not only through his family and friends, but also through the countless radio listeners he reached and volunteers he inspired during his decades at KALX. He was a champion of independent artists and outsider music.

Mike's hospitality was as generous as it was legendary, from intimate backyard meals highlighting vegetables from his garden, to an annual turkey-free Thanksgiving feast that typically lasted into the early hours of Friday morning. Mike's Italian heritage was front and center on Thanksgiving, with cheese courses giving way to artichoke hearts (or soup!), onion tarts, pasta dishes (cacio e pepe, aglio e olio), Sunday gravy, and late-night pork tenderloin grilled outdoors under the illumination of a headlamp. It was the best and most familial holiday of the year, as Mike's family and friends gathered to eat, rest, eat, walk, eat, rest, eat, nap, eat and eat.

Mike was an immensely proud and supportive husband and father. He was open and inviting to everyone he met, and he flourished as the hub of an ever-expanding social circle that encompassed and cross-pollinated his many interests. His absence is felt by all those whose lives he touched. Mike is survived by his loving wife, Terri Manning; his son, Rocco Rizzi; his mother, Verna Rizzi; his siblings, Tony, Vanessa, and Tania Rizzi; his nieces, Lily, Addy, Margot and Audrey; his aunts Marianne Borgia and Lucy Guglielmi; his uncle Lenny Caruso; and his beloved tomato vines and pimientos de padrón bushes. He was preceded in death by his father, Peter Rizzi.

Befitting Mike's Italian roots, a memorial celebration of his life will be held at Oakland's Colombo Club. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to KALX-FM or your local independent radio station.