Harold Jerome Garber was born to Israel and Bessie (Epstein) Garber in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 12, 1913. He earned his B. S. (1935) and graduate credit toward a PhD (1935-1940) at the University of Cincinnati. He married Mary Ann Toff on December 17, 1944, and the couple had five children: Harry Kenneth, Richard Ian, Thomas Robert, Ellen Alice, and Sally Jane. Garber began his professional career as an Instructor at the University of Cincinnati in 1936 and rose to the rank of Associate Professor before becoming a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Tennessee in 1947. He left academia for a career in industry in 1955 when he accepted a position as Manager of Chemical Development for Westinghouse's Atomic Power Division in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He went on to serve as the Director of Plutonium Programs, Director of Advanced Projects, Technical Assistant to the President, and Manager of Central Engineering at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Apollo, Pennsylvania (1959-1969), as the Technical Assistant to the President and Engineering Consultant for Atlantic-Richfield Nuclear (1969-1972), as Technical Assistant to the Manager of Westinghouse's Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors Program (1972-1974), and as a Consulting Engineer for Westinghouse's Fusion Reactor Division (1974-1984). Garber also worked as a consultant for a number of organizations, including the U. S. Air Force (1941-1954), the General Air Conditioning Corporation (1942-1954), the Adler Company (1943-1949), and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1945-1955). Garber died on August 28, 1991 and is buried in Knoxville's New Jewish Cemetery.