Harold E. Atkinson attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio and earned a Beaux Arts scholarship. At Cornell he was a member of the class of 1933, taking courses in Landscape Architecture until 1935. He worked for the Trundle Corporation in Cleveland for a year and moved to San Mateo, California for a short time before taking up work with the Northeast Illinois Metropolitan Region Planning Commission. He returned to San Mateo and opened his own office, eventually becoming the San Mateo City Planner.