Joseph Edward Hayes

Joseph Edward Hayes was born on October 14, 1937, in Champaign Illinois. He was one of nine children born to John (Jack) Hayes and Ann Hayes, and grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family. He attended Holy Cross church and school and Champaign High School, where he got up to a lot of shenanigans with his friends and siblings (and probably learned some Math and English too). He worked from a young age, including delivering flowers for Art Floral.
He attended the University of Illinois for a year before joining the Army in 1956. He trained to be a lab tech/medic in Texas for 6 months, and was then stationed in Germany at the Landstuhl Research Facility and hospital. He spent 3 memorable years there learning German and science, traveling all over and doing work he enjoyed with people he liked and admired.
He returned to Champaign after being discharged in 1959 and met Nancy Kay Sedgwick. They married on June 15, 1963. Daughter Susan Elizabeth was born in March of 1966. Joe returned to the U of I where he majored in computer science and physics. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Management in 1964. While he had loved being a medic and the physical sciences, he pivoted to computers and stayed there for the rest of his career. Joe worked in the computing lab at the U of I until 1972 when the family moved to Colorado. He became Manager of Data Processing at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He advanced to Director of CU's computing center before leaving in the late 1980's to be Director of the Colorado State General Government computing center. He loved his department and people, but never liked the politics. He retired in 2000.
Joe and Nancy divorced in 1976. He remarried Judy Windholz a few years later and became stepfather to her 2 children, Kim and Jeff. They divorced in 1995 and he remained single for the rest of his life.
Joe had many titles in his life, but the one he loved best was Granpa Joe, which he became in 2001 when his grandson Sawyer Hayes was born. From that point on, everyone knew him as Granpa Joe.
He loved Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, the weather and scenery, camping, fishing, hiking, skiing, 4 wheeling, etc. He loved the Colorado Rockies and the Denver Broncos, playing golf (mostly after he retired when he took it up with a passion to match his brothers'), poker and bridge (where he always took everyone's money), sports, science and the cosmos, Jameson's Irish whiskey, and his family.
Joe is preceded in death by his parents, brother Jack Hayes, sisters Mary Francis (Sanci), Margaret Bargh and Aileesha Potter, his ex-wife Nancy and his step children. He is survived by his daughter Susan Hayes-Johnson (Steven) and grandson Sawyer of Broomfield, his brothers Jerry Hayes, Tom Hayes and Patrick Hayes, and his sister Florence Baublits, and a host of nieces and nephews.
Information regarding a service and/or wake will be posted as soon as it is available. In lieu of flowers, please feel free to make a donation to a local charity of your choice.