Colgate went on to serve as the president of New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico from the beginning of 1965 through the end of 1974. While there he conducted research programs in astrophysics and atmospheric physics as well as leading the college.

Many of his projects had colorful names inspired by the experimental configurations and goals. Some of these included DigAs (a search for early supernova in galaxies with a remote controlled telescope in real time using an IBM 360-44 mainframe computer