Paul Burri was born October 21, 1929, in Newark, New Jersey, and he died October 31, 2023, in Goleta, California. He was 94.

His parents, Rose and Alfred Burri, owned a house and beauty salon in Rutherford, New Jersey, and, when Paul was 5 years old, they sold the house and salon and moved to an apartment in the Bronx, New York, where he grew up and went to school.

Paul graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School (judged to be the finest high school in the United States at the time) in 1947. He was accepted at tuition-free Cooper Union in New York City, but only attended for one semester when he left to go to work to help support himself and his widowed mother.

In 1950, he flew to Los Angeles, California, to visit a friend and, three days later, got bored and got a job as a machinist.

Paul always described himself as a woodworker, inventor, entrepreneur, photographer, teacher and author.

Paul was in the U.S. Army as a demolitions expert for two years during the Korean War, and was discharged as a sergeant in 1953.

In 1952, he married Beverly Rozner, who later died.

He married Betty Sturnick in 1987 and is survived by his second wife, Betty; his son, Glenn; and his daughter, Janet.

Paul worked as the general manager of various small manufacturing businesses and, after eight years as a senior manufacturing engineer at Northrup-Grumman, he retired in December 1994.

One month later, in January 1995, he became bored with retirement and he founded BrandNew Industries in his garage. BrandNew is a company that makes branding irons for woodworker, beekeepers, pallet manufacturers, irrigation contractors and numerous other applications.

He sold BrandNew in 2007 for his second retirement. The company is still in business.

During his lifetime, Paul earned a California lifetime teaching credential, his real estate license, a BSBA from the University of Phoenix and membership in Mensa International.

He taught numerous classes at Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys, California, and at the Wake Center in Santa Barbara, California.

Paul had numerous professional shows of his photography and his extensive woodworking. He wrote a regular business column for Noozhawk for six years between 2008 and 2014. He was an active member of SCORE in Santa Barbara for about 12 years.

In his retirement years, Paul spent much of his time in his fully equipped garage workshop making numerous wooden creations and writing humorous anecdotes, short stories, limericks and a few poor poems.

A memorial is scheduled for 2 p.m. November 18, 2023, at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 380 N. Fairview Ave., Goleta 93117.