This paper introduces a novel rectangular tri-band patch antenna that is fabricated and measured for wireless communication systems. The introduced antenna is designed for WLAN and WiMAX applications. The desired tri-band operation was obtained by proper loading for a rectangular patch antenna using slots and shorting pins. The optimal location and dimension for the loaded elements were obtained with the aid of interfacing a Genetic Algorithm (GA) model with an Ansoft High Frequency Structural Simulator (HFSS). The results obtained from our simulated antenna show 5.8% impedance matching band width at 2.4 GHz, 3.7% at 3.5 GHz and 1.57% at 5.7 GHz. In addition, an equivalent circuit of the proposed antenna is introduced using the least square curve fitting optimization technique.