Henry Clifford Smith III

Henry Clifford Smith, III, 86, of Atlanta, passed away in his home on March 26, 2019, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Jody Garrard Smith, his children, Vicky Halsey (Jim), Laurie Osborne (Steve) and Eric Smith (Kassandra), his grandchildren Audrey Mearhoff (Dan), Chris Harden, Daniel Parks, Ryan Parks, Garrett Smith, and Caitlyn Smith, step-grandchildren Beth (Joe Weisenberger) and Laura Halsey, David (Emily) and Steven Osborne, Alexandria and Townshend Phelps, and his great-grandchildren Lucas Henry and Theresa Jo Mearhoff.
Henry was born on March 12, 1933, in Atlanta, GA to Henry Clifford Smith and Marjorie Ann Smith (Clinton). He graduated from Decatur Boys High School in 1950 and obtained a degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1954. He was on the track and field team as a hurdler and a high jumper. He was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity, for which his grandson, Daniel, is also a legacy. Upon graduation he moved to Dayton, OH, where he worked for Delco Products. He was drafted into the Army in December of 1954 and served as a corporal in Texas until his honorable discharge in 1956. He returned to Atlanta and met the love of his life, Jody Garrard, on a blind date in December 1956. They were married on April 5, 1958. In 1963 they built a beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright style home and deck on cliffs overlooking the little Nancy Creek in Vinings, GA, where they raised their three children.
Henry worked for Mead Packaging Corporation from 1957 to 1968 as a systems analyst and quality control engineer. He earned his MBA from Georgia State in 1967. He accepted a position with Lockheed Georgia Corporation in 1968 where he was a senior scientist and research analyst, working in computer programming. He developed a simple but powerful methodology for designing relational databases and was published in Communications of the ACM and Database Programming and Design. In 1990 he retired from Lockheed and started a company named Tableau, based on his relational database design methodology. After Tableau closed in 1995 he returned to Lockheed as a consultant, working with both his son, Eric, and his daughter, Laurie.
Henry finally retired from work in 1998 to spend time traveling and enjoying his family and home. His favorite activities were jogging and walking with Jody, home projects, deck time with family, and cheering on the Yellow Jackets. Henry was a past president of the Vinings Home Owners Association and the Vinings Civic Club.
A service celebrating Henry’s life will be at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta on April 6, 2019 at 2:00 pm.