Pat Madison is one of those guys who’s been quietly making Golden a better place for decades. He moved here from his native Montana in the early 80’s and began working as a comp sci instructor at the School of Mines. He and a grad student, Dan Smith, developed a graphics program that worked with personal computers, which were new at the time. Together, they founded Golden Software, which has been producing scientific graphing products for more than 30 years.
When his daughters were young, Pat worked as a classroom volunteer at Shelton Elementary. He’s been a member of the Golden Rotary since 1990 and has helped with their many service projects, including building the Rotary Amphitheater along Clear Creek. Pat has also served on the Golden Civic Foundation board for many years.
In the 2000’s, Pat took up sculpture. He made the giant cutthroat trout along Clear Creek, as well as the butterflies behind the Amphitheater along the Creek. In 2012, he contributed the statue of a service dog that graces Foothills Animal Shelter.
Pat’s company built their first website in 1994, and reserved two domain names: goldensoftware.com and golden.com. He chose to use the longer name, but held onto golden.com, just in case he ever needed it. Golden.com is a highly desirable name, and over the years, many companies contacted Pat, wanting to buy it from him. He always declined.
In 2007, I started this community website, using the name onlinegolden.com. Pat liked what I was doing for Golden, and in 2009 he offered me the use of his coveted golden.com domain name. We made an agreement, that if I continued to run this website for the benefit of the Golden community for 5 years, he would give me permanent use of the domain name. I’ve now reached the 5 year mark, so this website gets to remain www.golden.com!
Thank you Pat, for yet another generous contribution to the Golden community!
