WUWM radio producer Eilee Heikenen-Weiss died Oct. 31 after being a passenger in a car involved in an Oct. 29 traffic crash in Verona.
Heikenen-Weiss was a producer for the Milwaukee radio station’s Lake Effect program. She was 39.
Heikenen-Weiss began her career in public radio at WBEZ in Chicago as an intern in 2007 on their Eight Forty-Eight magazine show. Over the next seven years, she advanced in producing roles on Eight Forty-Eight, Morning Shift, and Afternoon Shift before becoming the director and producer on Worldview, WBEZ’s international affairs show.
After WBEZ, Heikenen-Weiss took a nearly 10-year break from public radio. During this time, she led adventure trips and experiences for Backroads, an active travel company, becoming their Peru expert. She also spent time traveling throughout the United States.
In the summer of 2023, she briefly worked as a staff reporter for Adams Publishing Group in Sun Prairie before being hired as a producer on Lake Effect.
Eilee started at WUWM in October and quickly began to make a mark on her Lake Effect team and the WUWM staff. She said being a producer on Lake Effect was a dream job because it was an opportunity for her to get back to public radio and audio storytelling, two things that she learned in her time away that she greatly missed and loved.
Heikenen-Weiss quickly threw herself into the job and the Lake Effect team. She started a list of more than 20 story ideas, joined a committee, and began establishing roots in Milwaukee.
An obituary from WUWM said, “Eilee represented and lived the best qualities of all of us at WUWM. She was intensely curious, generous of spirit, full of care for her community, and so vibrant and full of life. She was most interested in telling the stories that helped our friends and neighbors get to know each other and our region better. Eilee was one of us.”
Her family is asking that any gifts or donations be made to a public radio station or to a local animal shelter in her honor.
