Arriving in College Park as a freshman, Mike Luzio knew he wanted to be at a “big school” and figured the rest out from there. Thus began a life’s journey that has seen him give back continuously to his alma mater in various ways, up to and including serving as the University’s youngest trustee. Through it all, he’s maintained perspective on a key ingredient to his success: “On the universal balance sheet, Sigma Chi was a huge driving force in putting me in position to be where I’m at in my life.”
After graduating with a degree in government and politics, he began a sales career in the tech sector, learning the ins and outs of the industry at multibillion-dollar firms. In 2004, he was ready to go out on his own, bootstrapping a software company that eventually sold for $60 million in 2013. “And from then on, I’ve been doing angel investing. I own bits and pieces of 22 companies, sit on boards for several of those companies and the University of Maryland Board of Trustees. For my sons, I coach the high school football team and coach AAU basketball, and I live that life.”
Like many Sigma Chi’s, Mike came from an athletic background, particularly as a standout player for his New Jersey high school football team. “I got all these Division I-AA (football) offers, and I was like, ‘I want to go to a big school. I’m gonna walk on at Maryland.’ That lasted about a week. I had a miserable experience my first semester, awful. I wanted to transfer. I called coaches from Delaware and Rhode Island, and said, ‘Look, I’m coming up to play ball.’ And they’re like, ‘We’re ready for you.’ And then at that point, there were these guys called Sigma Chi. I remember thinking I never wanted to be a fraternity guy, ever. But I met these guys, and they were a lot like me. I said, ‘Maybe I’ll give this a shot.’”
The choice to pledge may have been a hard pivot, but after committing to Sigma Chi, he attacked the experience with an attitude befitting his Jersey roots, an identity in which he proclaims great pride. “Once I got in, I made the decision: ‘You know what? I like this, but there needs to be changes made.’ I started taking positions within the house. We had 60 guys in the house and 150 guys active. It was running my first business. I talk about that all the time. It was difficult, and it was great. That’s probably what started me wanting to be an entrepreneur, because I had no entrepreneurial bone in my body. I thought I was gonna be an FBI agent like my father. But once I got a taste of that, leading young men and understanding what it took to stand up, I liked it.”
He eventually rose to the position of house president during his senior year, leading the charge in obtaining much-needed funding from the house corporation to renovate the bathrooms. (“I told them, ‘I got one working toilet. I need some f—king toilets!’”) But before that, he cut his teeth, like many before him, contributing to the house’s dominance of intramural athletics. “Sigma Chi was the house where the ex-jocks went to die. We won intramurals something like 45 out of 47 years.” 
His talents were put to use on various house teams throughout the year, with varying results (“I was terrible at baseball; there are great stories about that.”), but never to greater effect than in one particular sport: “I did have one skill, which I still have today, which is I was an insanely good ping pong player. I took the intramural ping pong championships, and that was points for the house. To this day, that ping pong championship remains very near and dear to my heart.”
Musing on all the lasting benefits of his Sigma Chi connection – from the afterglow of table tennis glory to real-life lessons from managing 60 live-in undergrads – Mike returns to the value of relationships. “You hear the term ‘lifelong friendships,’ and I can’t say it enough. We hang out all the time, the same guys. We get together for tailgates. I still have a text with 26 guys going right now, 46 years old, and we still text back and forth on a group text, and that happens at least 10 times a day.”
For all these reasons and more, he has stayed active and involved in supporting the chapter. Beyond his duties as a University trustee, he routinely returns to campus for initiation week. When Sigma Chi was disbanded in the early 2000s, he joined a group of alumni leaders in sparking the drive to recolonize, and he recently joined Jonathan Valz ’96 in endowing the Valz-Luzio Common Room at the house.
“Sigma Chi has been very, very instrumental to me. As a consequence, I’ve kept in really close touch. I want these young men at Sigma Chi to have the same great experience that I had. It’s all about mentoring kids and wanting to give back to the community. You’ve got to give back. I was taught that by my father and mother a long time ago, and I try to do the best I can.”