Harry received his Bachelor of Arts Degree (in English) from Vanderbilt University but found his way to music many years later and in a much more round about way than his partner Pat Patrick.

To pay for his Vandy degree,  Harry joined Nashville’s Southwestern Company as a student book salesman knocking on doors for four summers in Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama. Then for the next six years he was employed full time by Southwestern as a Sales Manager to recruit and supervise student salesmen from colleges and universities in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Virginia, New York and New England.

After Southwestern, Harry spent the next thirty years as a partner in Athlon Sports Communications, Inc. also based in Nashville—involved over these years as President, Sales Manager and Sales Trainer. Athlon Sports Communications remains today the largest publisher of sports annual magazines in the country with more than a dozen regional and national titles covering all major college and professional sports in the U.S.

When Harry retired from Athlon Sports in 2002 he decided to start his third career in Music City in, of all things, MUSIC! Harry and his partner, Pat Patrick, formed Okey Dokey Records in 2008 to produce fun kids music containing positive life-lessons. Motivation for this move came from several sources. 

First, he knew several successful songwriters including long time friend/big time writer Wood Newton (“Riding with Private Malone”) who twenty years earlier liked an idea Harry had for a song and brought in another top Nashville writer, Dan Tyler. When he later saw his name listed as a “co-writer”, Harry was forever “hooked” on someday learning how to become a songwriter too!

Second, a  40 year career in selling tangibles (books) and intangibles (advertising space) to everyone from homemakers in Kentucky to corporate executives in New York City gave Harry confidence that he had the empathy to understand and communicate effectively (and honestly) with a wide range of people. He’d been successful in getting people to listen to him via the phone, via letter and in face-to-face meetings---why not work hard to learn how successful songwriters use lyrics and music to communicate what one thinks is important?

Finally, a 40 year marriage to the world’s most wonderful woman - Ann - and the birth of two wonderful daughters and now three wonderful grand-daughters gave Harry the biggest reason to team up with Pat Patrick and write the lyrics to the twelve children’s songs on the “I CAN DO ANYTHING!” album.

Harry believes that Pat Patrick’s melodies, arrangements and orchestration of these 12 “little life lessons” will hopefully cause other children and their parents/grandparents to laugh, sing, dance and (maybe even) TALK together about some little things in life that really may not be so little when one stops to think about them.