Arnold J Goldman

In creating the Luz International Corporation in 1979, Goldman virtually founded the global solar-energy industry and proved that solar power could be commercially and technically viable. Goldman was born in 1943. He married Karen Freed in 1964 and studied engineering at UCLA. He held BS and MSEE degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. In 1969, he cofounded Lexitron, a company that produced the first commercially successful word-processing program, giving him the distinction of having helped found two major industries. After Lexitron was acquired by Raytheon in 1978, Goldman and his family moved to Jerusalem. In 1991, Luz failed, owing to an unexpected decision by California to end the landtax exemption on Luz’s fields. Goldman founded another start-up, InSyst, which automated semiconductor production. Goldman saw an opportunity to re-found Luz as concern mounted about climate change in the early 2000s. Remarkably, he brought back most of the original Luz’s core technical and management team to found Luz 2, later renamed Brightsource Energy, in 2006. Brightsource has subsequently built the biggest solar-thermal plant in the US and is co-developing the Ashalim plant, which will be the largest in Israel. After completing his tenure as chairman of Brightsource, Goldman founded Mada Energy in 2012 with his son Elazar. The company’s mission was to revolutionize energy storage. Goldman also cofounded Alma Ecocities Ltd. with his daughter Tamar Goldman- Sachs to develop futuristic, zero-carbon “eco-cities.” He and his wife, Karen, to whom he was devotedly married for 53 years, raised five children – Laura, Daniel, Shlomo, Tamar and Elazar – in a loving family that included 13 grandchildren.