Harry F. Smith

Harry F. Smith grew up in the frozen wilderness of Jersey City, New Jersey and proudly claims to be a born and bred native, but only when it is to his financial advantage to do so.

After a brief career in the Navy stationed at the amphibious base at Little Creek, Virginia as a member of Beachmaster Unit Two,   he attended California State University, Chico  where he somehow managed to obtain a BS in Mathematics and a Master's in Computer Science. A glutton for punishment, he spent another year at the McCloud Institute of SImulation Sciences as a graduate assistant and was the first person to receive a Certificate of Achievement in Simulation Science from the Institute.

He also ate a lot of ramen noodles and drank many beers during this time. 

After graduating from college, Harry needed to pay off his numerous school loans, so he worked as a software engineer  on various defense industry projects. Most of them can't be talked about in public forums without filling out massive amounts of paperwork, but believe me, they involved some pretty cool stuff like lasers and bombs and small furry creatures from other planets. 

During this time, he authored  many boring technical documents and manuals, such as  'A Case Study of Constrained Nonlinear Optimization Methods'  and 'A Thousand and One Ways to Properly Use Your Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO)'. None of these ever reached the New York Times Best Sellers list, although he did win a minor award for 'The Most Semicolon Usage in a Government Document.'