Jeff Golden - Personal Background

Personal Background

Golden was born in Los Angeles, California, the second of four children born to Lane and Jack Golden. His siblings include KC Golden, Policy Director for the Seattle based Climate Change Advocacy group Climate Solutions; Michael Golden, a tribal judge in Humboldt County, California; and Jesse Golden. Jeff grew up in Beverly Hills, California, and graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1968 as the Student Body President and at the top of his class.

Golden attended Harvard as a Harvard National Scholar, a scholarship program established in honor of Harvard’s 300th anniversary with the goal of encouraging and enabling a small number of the best students from across the nation to attend the university. At college, Golden was active in efforts in opposition to the Vietnam War. In May 1970 he tried to join the Venceremos Brigade, but was turned down. Golden instead volunteered along with northern students to support the work of Featherfield Farm, the first ever sharecroppers' cooperative, created under the Georgia Council on Human Relations in Southwest Georgia. The experience inspired Golden to leave Harvard and try to build a sustainable life on a plot of land in rural Southern Oregon, an experience chronicled in Golden's first published book, Watermelon Summer: A Journal.

In the early 1970s, Golden worked as a river guide for American River Touring Association. Golden and his then girlfriend Catherine Shaw were featured in the 1978 documentary film Riverdogs by fellow Harvard alumnus Robb Moss, which followed 17 people on a month-long rafting trip down the Colorado River. The couple were married the next year.

In 1980, Golden was accepted into the Stanford University’s Broadcast Communications master's program after writing Forest Blood, an essay about his life in the 1970s. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1994, and Shaw went on to have a career as a politician and political consultant. Both appeared in the 2003 documentary film The Same River Twice, a follow-up to Riverdogs.