MAN OF THE CENTURY: JOHN MADDEN John Madden adores art and aesthetics and delights in dogs!

He might have been an attorney or followed a career in art or founded a humane society… but his powerful intuition led to blazing a trail of expression and he carved his incomparable niche as a premier developer

This John Madden will be 94 years young shortly after this feature is published. (Not to be confused with another legend –the John Madden of football fame whose calls our John Madden had received, good naturedly, over the years.) This awesome, optimistic, authentic John W. Madden, Jr. hails from Omaha, Nebraska and grew up on Hickory Street with his parents

John Worthington Madden, Sr., Dorothy Pinkerton Madden and sisters Jane (married to Leroy Crosby, now in Florida) and Susan (married to Rob Lankford, now in California) in an idyllic setting. Madden. It’s a good name. Even in fashion. The beloved Burberry label (of which John’s sister Jane is so fond) has a pattern called Madden Plaid.

It’s no wonder John appreciated art at an early age. His mom was a docent at Joslin Art Museum and John often accompanied her and later worked there. Even as a child, he was a driven entre- preneur and worked winters shoveling snow. He attended Benson High School where he played basketball. You’d expect a man with such a history of accomplishments in the commercial building industry to have majored in construction management or business or art history at the University of Nebraska. Not so. The multi-talented Liberal Arts major had been on the debate team (his partner later became president of Eli Lilly) and had enjoyed being managing editor of the school newspaper winning the Pacemaker Award twice. He met his future wife – artist (of course) Marjorie Putt by accident. It was a blind date, love at first sight and a meantto-be marriage. He was a fraternity man (Sigma Alpha Epsilon) and she was sorority woman

(Kappa Kappa Gamma). John had been accepted to study law at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but dropped out of pre-law when he learned he was going to be a father.

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