Former SiriusXM radio exec is first victim identified in deadly Tahoe avalanche

A former radio executive and mother of two from the Bay Area was the first victim to be identified in the deadly Lake Tahoe avalanche.

Kate Vitt, who lived with her husband and two sons in Marin County, was killed in the disaster that left eight others dead, a neighbor confirmed. Vitt worked as a vice president at the satellite radio company SiriusXM before leaving in 2025.

Rescue crews located the victims’ bodies on Castle Peak near Lake Tahoe, but the Nevada County Sheriff said Thursday that they remain on the mountain due to hazardous weather conditions.

A neighbor of Vitt and her husband Geoff in the Greenbae neighborhood, located about 17 miles north of San Francisco, called the incident “heartbreaking.”

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“She was just a lovely person and would light up the room,” Diane Gerold said. “Always very happy.”

Gerold said she thought the couple’s two sons were on the ski team, and the mom was taking a sabbatical from work to figure out the next chapter of her life.

Vitt graduated from Boston College and previously worked for the music company Pandora and the clothing label Anthropologie, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Customers and staff at Uli Seiler Ski Shop in nearby Kentfield expressed shock when word came through that Vitt was among the victims.

“Oh my God,” a store clerk told The Post. “She’s a big customer.”

On Tuesday, a group of 15 skiers were caught in the avalanche, California’s deadliest in modern history. Six people were rescued.

The group was in the mountains near Lake Tahoe when the avalanche overwhelmed them while backcountry skiing with the private company Blackbird Mountain Guides.

Three guides were killed in the avalanche, the sheriff’s office said.

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The Sugar Bowl Academy, an organization based near the avalanche site that trains skiers, confirmed that a group of mothers were among the victims. Any connection between Vitt and the academy wasn’t immediately clear.

Blackbird Mountain Guides has faced criticism for leading the group despite avalanche warnings.

On Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said it was looking into the tour group after it chose to venture out in snowy conditions.

“Those are the decisions that the guide company clearly had made,” Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said. “We’re still in conversations with them on the decision factors.”