David Richardson was a longtime member of the ALS community, working with the Center for X-Ray Optics and then a decades-long owl shift operator at the Advanced Light Source before retiring in 2021. He passed away in April 2026 and will be missed dearly.
- Read: Memorial Article for David Richardson
- Read: Memories of David Richardson By His Mom Connie
- Read: Memory Board for David Richardson
We have collected memories from the community to share with each other and with David’s family. To share a message and/or photos, please contact alscommunications@lbl.gov
Hear from David Richardson’s friend, James Bork:
Friendship, Aristotle observed, is either itself a virtue or is closely bound to virtue. He wrote that “no one would choose to live without friends, though he had all the other good things in the world.” Although friendship is not sufficient by itself to bring about a flourishing life, it merits special attention in the context of remembering our friend, David Richardson. Dave embodied the kind of friendship Aristotle had in mind — one that enriches life not merely by comfort or convenience, but by calling us toward what is thoughtful, honest, and good. It is in that spirit that I remember him.
I had the good fortune of being Dave’s friend during the full arc of his adult life. His friendship profoundly influenced who I have become during those years, and who I am still becoming. It was a friendship formed at a time when he and I were not yet fully formed. When we met at 19 and 20 years old, we had only just begun to meet the teachers, read the books, think the thoughts, and seek out the experiences that came to shape our lives. Whatever unique perspective I may have on Dave’s life comes from knowing him before his years of professional life at the Advanced Light Source and Berkeley Lab began.
Dave and I met when we were philosophy students at the University of Michigan in 1980. He had been involved in the formation of, and leadership in, a student/faculty philosophy forum, and I attended its sessions regularly. Our friendship grew from there, and deepened as we discussed the ideas of philosophers we were reading in several of the same classes and the ideas of others that we read and discussed on our own. More than anything else, our friendship remained throughout more than 45 years what it had been at the start — a shared intellectual adventure. Two early examples capture that spirit.
Very early on, Dave proposed that we supplement our philosophical conversations with written exchanges — essays on issues or questions that we outlined in advance. The idea was simple: to think more deeply than conversation alone often allows. Writing slowed us down, reduced the reactive back-and-forth that is typical of conversations, and in case of philosophical disagreement shifted our focus from ego (“I’m right”) to inquiry (“Who’s right?”). That was typical of Dave: he identified a worthy goal, devised a process to pursue it, and shaped that process to minimize distraction. The essays eventually became as demanding as term papers, and lack of time made the project unsustainable. But the seriousness of the effort stayed with us.
A second example followed not long after. Within a year or two after we met, Dave and I embarked upon what we came to refer to as the spiritual odyssey or the religious odyssey. Like many children born in suburban America in the early 1960s, we had both grown up within the Christian tradition. We had no quarrel with it — but we could not ignore the fact that people of other faiths held their beliefs with strong conviction and for reasons we could recognize and understand. That observation seemed, at the very least, to point to the possibility of a reality that was broader than a single faith. So we set out to explore it.
What began as an idea became, during more than three years, a sustained and deliberate journey. We immersed ourselves in a range of religious communities — some well known, others less so. At each stop, we established a period of engagement: attending services, reading sacred texts, and speaking at length with clergy (pastors, priests, swamis, imams, etc.) and with members of each community. It was, again, time-consuming and demanding. But unlike the essay project, we carried this one through.
The purpose of the odyssey was not simply to understand doctrine, though Dave was fully capable of engaging at that level. Its primary aim was practical: to discover how one ought to live — and more specifically, how we ought to live. He believed, deeply and without qualification, that how we live matters. And he carried that conviction forward in a way I have rarely seen.
I wouldn’t say the odyssey was the catalyst that put Dave on a path toward goodness. I knew his parents, and I am confident he had been on that path long before we met. Nor would I claim that it accelerated his progress in any simple sense. But the odyssey modified both path and progress. During those years, Dave reflected, perhaps more deliberately than before, on the importance of cultivating the virtues, and on his responsibility to live in accordance with them. The result was not a change in direction, but a deeper grounding. The goodness so many of us recognized in him became, I think, more firmly rooted in his character.
During the years since those early adventures, our lives took their expected turns. But notwithstanding the demands of further education, careers, and the ordinary responsibilities that arise in the prime of life, Dave and I consistently made time to maintain and strengthen our friendship. What we began together as young students — a commitment to think carefully, to question honestly, and to live deliberately — was something he never set aside.
A life as meaningful as Dave’s cannot be reduced merely to examples from which lessons can be drawn. No exploration we undertook, no argument we evaluated, and no conclusion we reached captures the full scope of our decades-long friendship. But I will carry forward a realization that Dave and I achieved in practice — that life can be both thoughtful and good; that conviction need not be loud to be firm; and that the measure of our thinking is found, ultimately, in how we live.
I was fortunate to have known Dave during the beginning of that achievement, and to have shared in its development during more than four decades. But Dave’s most important projects, like all truly important projects, reached beyond the bounds of this life, and his departure, therefore, does not represent a defeat. Instead, it stands as an invitation to us to begin or continue projects of our own that enable us to be better and to do better in this life, and to carry that forward hereafter.