Harry Smith

Harry L. Smith, 95, of Boulder City, NV, died Thursday, March 8, 2018, at home. He was born July 17, 1922, in Sharon, TN, the oldest son of the late H. L. and Amanda Maude (Wyman) Smith.

Harry grew up in Paris, TN, and Paducah, KY, where he went to Tilghman High School, lettering in band and graduating in 1940. He attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, from 1940 to 1943, where he played glockenspiel in the Purdue Marching Band and bass clarinet in the Purdue Concert Band. He graduated in absentia in August 1943 with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering while he was training with the U.S. Navy at Notre Dame and later in Boston.

He married M. Janette Haag, a Purdue classmate, at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, MD, on July 2, 1944. Shortly after, his naval unit was shipped to the Aleutian Islands. When he was released from military service at the end of 1945, he and Janette moved to Boston, MA, where Harry worked for one of the research labs at M.I.T. doing classified work on the Manhattan District Project before joining the newly established firm of Edgerton, Germeshausen, & Grier (EG&G) on January 1,1948, as a photographic instrumentation engineer. He was one of the original engineers who moved out west in 1953 when EG&G established offices in Las Vegas to support testing at the Nevada Test Site. He remained with EG&G through his retirement in 1987 and stayed on as a casual, part-time employee until 1995. Throughout his career he pursued graduate studies, including at Harvard, M.I.T, and USC.

Harry was a 65-year Master Mason and a lifetime member of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, which he joined in 1953, as well as a member of the SPIE (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) from 1956 until well into his retirement .

Harry is survived by his wife, Janette; daughters, Holly Gallup of Reno, NV, and Alison Smith of Atlanta, GA; and niece Sharon M. Smith of Raleigh, NC. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Thomas W. Smith.

Private family services were held. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to the H. L. & Maude W. Smith Library Endowment at the University of Tennessee at Martin (www.utmforever.com/s/1341/utm/index.aspx?sid=1341&gid=5&pgid=438; list the endowment name in the box labeled “Describe Fund Not Listed”), which Harry established in honor of his parents in 2000, or to the Nature Conservancy.