Donald Lee Brown

Donald L. Brown was the type of person who always made anybody around him feel welcome and included. He cared about other people and also about nature and art. He traveled extensively for work and pleasure, and always appreciated seeing the different cultures, environments and people.

Painting, tying fly fishing lures, golf, reading thrillers, hunting for pheasant and civil war relics, and completing jigsaw puzzles were some of his favorite hobbies.

He had a thirst for knowledge that extended way beyond the boundaries and close-mindedness that a small town upbringing can sometimes impose on people.

He also loved to watch old movies and had a great memory for actors’ names and faces. Mel Brooks could get him so tickled you couldn’t even hear him laughing just shoulders shaking and tears of joy.

Donald was lucky to find a life partner in his wife, Carmen. Her sweetness softened his temperament, and they had many adventures together spanning more than 65 years, including raising four children across several states as they moved for his job. During emergency room chaos during his final days he stopped and got a nurse to get Carmen some coffee, as he was always concerned with her wellbeing. Despite having daily pain in his later years due to a youthful car accident, he still always looked outwards to the world, instead of wallowing in self-pity.

His kids were given unconditional love and support. He never judged.... only gave his typical sage advice that helped them get through their challenges. His sense of humor and ability to listen and talk as a friend and a father will be dearly missed

More about this wonderful husband, father, grandfather and friend:

He was born in Iowa on September 8, 1938, the second of two boys. His brother Terry and he a tight bond that lasted through and past Terry's life. Don's father died he was just 11 and he and his brother were raised by his mom and her parents. He and Terry were high school sports stars in Donnellson, Iowa. He earned his B.S. in Geology from the University of Idaho and proceeded to pursue his Master's degree in Geology from the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (now Missouri School of Science and Technology). While working toward his Master's, he married Carmen, a woman he'd known since middle school. She traveled with him to Joshua Tree National Park where they did the field work for his Master’s Thesis Project. His first son, Darren also showed up just before he completed his Master’s degree. After graduating, he took a job with Mobil oil to work in the oil fields of west and northwest Texas. Son #2, Derek, arrived on the scene about year after the move. After bouncing around several locations in the first five years, he took a job with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Nashville, Tennessee, hoping that work for the USGS would provide more stability for him and his family. While in Tennessee, a third son, David, joined the family. Before two years had passed in Nashville, Don was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia. A daughter, Dawn, arrived about three years into the Norfolk posting. In 1974 he was transferred yet again to the Raliegh, North Carolina USGS office. The family settled into the nearby community of Cary, North Carolina.

That posting lasted two years before he was transferred to Colorado and the family settled in Littleton, Colorado in 1976. In 1979, a Canadian oil company, Frio Oil, made him an offer he couldn't refuse an hired him away from the USGS after reading his publications on the geology of the Williston Basin in North and South Dakota and Montana. They set him up as a consultant who could only do oil exploration consulting for them, but could do hydrogeology consulting for anyone. His company was callled Brown Geotectonics. That hire changed the course of the family’s development and the rest of his life. The salary he earned with the oil company allowed him to put all four of his children through college. The oil industry allowed him to see a significant part of the world and allowed him and Carmen to take trips to places that they otherwise might not have been able to see.

Don and Carmen settled in Berthoud, Colorado shortly before his retirement from Coastal Oil & Gas at the age of 63. At the recommendation of his daughter, he took some art classes and discovered he had a natural talent. He painted several hundred paintings in oils, acrylic, and watercolors. He preferred painting in oils. He sold many paintings by displaying them in local coffee shops and restaurants around the area. He also painted upon commission. He painted images of pets for a number of pet owners. He also gave away paintings to friends, family, and acquaintances who expressed an interest in his art.

Don loved to bird hunt, fish, and golf. While in Virginia and North Carolina, he became a metal detecting enthusiast. He researched books and journals for Civil War campsites and battles. He found thousands of Civil War and Revolutionary War artifacts including, bullets, buttons, belt buckles, guns, bayonets, and unexplored bombs that he had to have professionally diffused. He took Darren with him on many trips and taught Darren how to metal detect as well.

As a father, he did the regular dad stuff like teaching his kids how to ride a bike; how to throw, hit, and catch a baseball; how to throw a football; how to play racquetball; how to fish with bait, a lure, and how to flyfish. He taught his kids how to drive a manual transmission. He taught the two oldest boys how to body surf in the waves of the Atlantic in Virginia. He taught his sons how to shoot a shotgun. He loaded his own shells and took the boys out to a shooting range where they practiced shooting clay targets thrown by both by hand and by mechanical launchers. He took them dove hunting and pheasant hunting. He hunted and fished well into his 70’s. He taught his sons to golf. Golf outings were a common activity in the Brown Boys get togethers in the 1990s and on. The outings allowed him and his sons to reconnect and much fun was had. Especially on the golfing/gambling trips to Mesquite, Nevada. Don loved playing poker during the second half of his life. He played right up until the last week of his life. The games were never for big stakes, rather they were a vehicle to visit and have fun. He played poker with his three sons four days before he passed.

Don took the whole family on trips to hunt for fossils, gems, and minerals. Don took some or all of the family to two different areas where everyone could find hundreds of shark teeth. The first place was in Cobbs Creek, Virginia. He knew someone whose parents owned a “summer” house that the whole family could stay in over a weekend. The house was in a portion of the Chesapeake Bay where the Piankatank River flowed into the bay. The kids could fish off the dock, swim in the water, and run around the area as it was next to farmland. The best activity was searching for 10-million-year-old shark teeth that would be left on the beach after each high tide. The second place was off the New Bern River in North Carolina. That site required an outboard motorboat trip down the river to a special place he had researched in an old document. The fossils had to be dug out of the river bank and sieved. Hundreds of 100-million-year-old shark teeth, crocodile teeth with some still in the jawbone, turtle shell fragments, and coprolite were found. Coprolite is fossilized poop. In this case, most was attributed to crocodiles and some even had that freshly pinched off shape like a dog would leave on your lawn. Crocodile vertebrae and one dinosaur tooth, suspected to be a plesiosaur, were also found. Don took one of the bigger vertebrae to a paleontologist at Duke University. The paleontologist estimated that it belonged to a crocodile well into the 30-foot length class.

Other “geology” trips included a trip to a phosphate pit in North Carolina where Darren found a 4-inch megalodon tooth and all found fossilized clams with calcite crystals inside. The family also went to another quarry where they could pull out 1-inch to 3-inch width pyrite cubes from a marlstone or claystone rock matrix. He took his boys geode hunting along creeks in Iowa. When the geodes were cracked open they'd have beautiful crystals inside. The family also panned for sapphires in Phillipsburg, Montana.

Don always had a knack for connecting with people. Darren thought that was trait Don picked up from his father. Don would ride with his father as his father visited farmers in Nebraska and sell them grain from the COOP. Darren believes Don picked up on how his father interacted with people and added his own talents to that learning over time. Don could talk to just about anyone and have them be very comfortable and at ease with him within a very short period of time. When he went hunting, he could talk his way onto almost anyone’s property.

Don used his talent to connect with people (they call it networking nowadays) to get Darren his first post-graduate, full-time job in the environmental consulting industry. Don was able to wrangle an interview for his son, David, with a biopharmaceutical company that ended up providing a lifetime career for David. Don set up his second son, Derek, with a blind date that ended up in marriage. He also supported his daughter, Dawn in her life endeavors. He helped Dawn get her first job after graduation. When she talked about going back to school and getting a Master’s in library science, he encouraged her to pursue the degree and helped her pay off the debt from her degree.

None of his kids had student loan debts when they graduated. All worked as much as they could during summers and in some cases, winter breaks. Don and Carmen covered the shortages. Don would also gave his kids a little spending money when they came home from college for a visit. Don never asked to be paid back.

In the late 70's, Don took his family on a trip to Disneyland in California by van. Stops along the way included Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Capital Reef, the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Death Valley, Carlsbad Caverns, and a few other stops along the way. He also took his family to Mazatlán, Mexico; Cancun and Cozumel in the Yucatan of Mexico; and to Club Med in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. The family visited the Tetons and Yellowstone twice, once in 1980 via a 26-foot-long RV and again as part of a trip for his kids, their spouses, and his grandkids during the summer of 2008.

Don loved Carmen and they shared 64 years together as husband and wife. He loved and supported his children in a multitude of ways. He celebrated his seven grandchildren and the grandchild that was lost. He was thrilled to see two great grandchildren arrive before his departure. Don was a friend to many.

Cremation has been entrusted to Ahlberg Funeral Chapel of Longmont, Colorado.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.ahlbergfuneralchapel.com with his loving family.