Spotlight on Madeline Norton

14 Questions with madeline

I grew up in a historic home, and then sort of lunged towards historic preservation in school. Currently, I work for UW. You’ve seen my work if you’ve ever looked for the elevator map. 

Highlights: two summers with the National Park Service, using New Orleans as a learning laboratory, learning how to glaze windows, collecting historic building materials that might not be safe anymore

Outside of preservation: Girl Scout leader, knitter, coffee drinker, cyclist, reader

Madeline joined the board in June 2017 and is currently the VP.



1.    What’s one thing you couldn’t live without? 

My glasses

2.    What are you listening to/reading these days?

Reading: The Secret Commonwealth, Three Women, Janesville, All the Birds in the Sky

Listening to: Courtney Barnett, Dessa, Childbirth

3.    What is the greatest challenge you have had to overcome in your life thus far?

Entering the workforce with a humanities degree during the recession, or moving 4 times in 5 months.

4.    What is the one thing you cannot resist? (food/dessert/candy/etc.)

Peanut butter cups

5.    Where is your favorite place to be?

Any National Parks property

6.    What is your favorite thing to do?

Baking cakes

7.    Where is the best place you’ve traveled to and why? 

The Swiss Alps, for the hiking and the trains and the chocolate bars

8.    What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever had?

Camp counselor 

9.    What’s the coolest (or most important) trend you see today?

Decreases in teen driving rates, and maybe an increase towards appropriately funded public transit

10.    What would you do (as a volunteer) if you weren’t doing this?

Reconnecting with my AmeriCorps team to tutor reading

11.    You’re hosting a dinner party. Who are the 3 people, living or dead, who you would invite and why? 

Anthony Bourdain to help in the kitchen, Hilary Hahn for a musical interlude, and Shigeru Ban to design the temporary structure to host it

12.    What's one thing about you that surprises people?

I follow the Tour de France every summer. 

13.    If you could do another job for just one day, what would it be? 

Stained glass artisan

14.    What do you think people should know about the Madison Trust?

It’s more than just tours.