Saying Goodbye To A Friend

Saying Goodbye To A Friend

I first met Mike Golden in 1989 when he applied for an entry-level engineering position with my company. He was right out of college but somewhat older and certainly more mature than most of the other applicants. In his mid-thirties he was, after all, an old man in our industry. During the interview, I found Mike very intelligent, technically competent, immediately likable, but reserved and quite. He did not blow his own horn.
After several days and many other interviews, I predictably lapsed into the shortsighted expediency that we are so often shackled with in today’s business world and decided to hire one of the hotter, younger, more outgoing engineers.

However, my office manager, a lady named Christina, to whom I shall always be grateful, stared at me accusingly and said, “Dean, what have you always said about the importance of hiring people with outstanding character? I think you said, ‘If their character is right everything else will follow’. You did say that didn’t you, Dean?” I had been properly shamed. How could I have missed it? We hired Mike immediately.

Within a week, I knew it was not a mistake. Within a month, he began to work minor miracles. By the end of the first year, Mike had gained the respect of everyone in the organization and was loved and respected by every person with whom he had contact. He had eclipsed almost every other engineer in the company and had emerged as a quietly competent technical leader who brought magic to everything he touched.

Over the next 8 years, Mike grew into one of the most mature, respected and leading edge engineers in the city. In my entire career, I have never given such large raises, so often to one person. Yet, he still managed to earn more that I could pay him. Not surprising, Mike was also one of the hardest working people that I have ever known. He came in early, seldom took a break, and almost never ate lunch and left work promptly, somewhere between six p.m. and midnight. While he may have had doubts about some things, Mike was quietly certain that anything worth doing could only be accomplished through hard work.

Always, great men who have made significant contributions to humanity have been driven by what is sometimes called “A Magnificent Obsession”. It is this driving force that fuels all “real” human accomplishment. Mike had “A Magnificent Obsession”. Few realized it. Even fewer valued it. If you read about the character and obsessive work habits of all great men, you will be struck by the similarity to the character and work habits of Mike Golden. Puzzled, I once asked him “Mike, why do you work so hard?” He said, “Dean, I do not have enough time in my lifetime to finish what I have already started.” Then, he winked at me and said, “Besides, what I do is not work.”

Whether it was work for Mike or not his “Magnificent Obsession” still came at a great price to the ones closest to him. Through history, the families of men who are extremely dedicated to their life’s work have always paid a dear price. The broken promises, the cold suppers, disappointment for the kids, the blank stares, the preoccupation with work even when they finally do get home, eventually takes it’s toll. Today, it is a rare family that survives it. Mike’s family was no exception.

The ironic part is, that in some strange way Mike was doing it all for his family. He told me so. He wanted to share with them the “mystery and excitement” of his world. But, he also understood that progress comes at a price and sometimes that price is paid at a very personal level.

Great men like Galileo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, whose accomplishments eclipse those of normal human beings, were also driven by “A Magnificent Obsession”. They “took a road less traveled” and Mike was right there on that road with them.

One did not have to be around Mike very long before it was realized that you were in the presence of a special intellect. He was curious about everything. Not just the work he did every day, but intellectual ideas, cutting edge technology, space, time, Einstein and God.

Most people never got a chance to glimpse into Mike’s mind as I was privileged to do on many occasions in quite, private conversation over the years. Most people are “tone deaf to” and bored by intellectual ideas. Some even ridicule people with questioning minds. Perhaps, wisely, like many “closet intellectuals”, Mike hid that side of himself from the world.

I feel deeply privileged to have shared with Mike, on many occasions, deep thoughts, scientific ideas, philosophical concepts and much conjecture on everything both in and outside the known universe. It wasn’t only what Mike knew that was important. It was the great, unanswered questions that Mike pondered, that never failed to inspire me.

Mike once told me “Before you spend your life looking for answers be sure you are asking the right questions”.

Did he ultimately come up with any answers? Yes, strangely, in some notable ways. But, the true progress of human intellect comes in very small steps. Mike left me personally, with a small “gem purse” full of radically innovative but scientifically sound ideas, questions and concepts. In that collection, too, is an awe-inspiring view of the universe that I could have gotten in no other way. I value these things among my greatest possessions. Though Mike’s final contribution to the human knowledge base was ultimately small, it was not insignificant. And, it is so much greater than that of anyone else I have ever known personally.

Over the years, I have attended a number of universities and have worked for several research organizations. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest research minds in the world. Yet, I can count on one hand the number of people I have known that compare intellectually to Mike Golden. He was quiet and unassuming but he called a spade a spade. He had a profound dedication to finding the truth in all things. He was intelligent, curious, and creative; hardworking, dedicated, loyal, honest, good looking, well dressed and he never took credit for any of it.

If the end of the world were to come, and God came to me and gave me the responsibility to make a list of people who would repopulate the new world, Mike Golden would be one of the first on my list. Mike wasn’t perfect. But, he was very special.

"We will not see the likes of him pass this way again."

On March 5, 2005 at 5:35 am, attended by his friends and family, Michael Golden succumbed to brain cancer.

He is survived by his wife and three children.

His two sons are following him into the field of science.
A small seed planted.