Dr. Harvey started his career working in technology for a number of large organizations. These included Litton Industries (a defense contractor), Bell Laboratories (a division of AT&T), Sweda International (a point of sale distributer), and Dunn & Bradstreet. Following this, he was a self-employed software consultant working with firms such as Dunn & Bradstreet and Honeywell. He then served as President of a value-added reseller of automated computer systems to the automotive aftermarket

After selling his computer business, Dr, Harvey began a twenty-five-year career teaching Computer Science at the university level, first at Dallas Baptist University (DBU) and then at Southern Oregon University (SOU). He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2001 and was nominated for the 2001 UTA Outstanding Doctoral Research Student Award. In that same year, his article on cluster computing was a finalist for best paper at the International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid). In 1999, under a NASA summer grant, he conducted research at the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. Although Dr. Harvey has done significant research in parallel programming, load balancing, and cluster computing, his primary research interest is in the area of computational linguistics.

During his tenure at DBU, Dr. Harvey founded the university’s cross country and track programs, serving as the head coach from 1996 through 2001. Dr. Harvey is himself an avid runner, having completed his 5th marathon at Boston in 1997. He continues running daily to this day.

From 2001 till 2016, he was an active member of the Computer Science faculty at Southern Oregon University, earning the position of Full Professor in 2015. He presently retains emeritus status.

In August 1994, Dr. Harvey and his family experienced a crisis in faith. Just after midnight on August 5, they learned that their seventeen-year-old son Aaron fell to his death from the roof of a parking garage in Dallas, Tx. This was followed by additional trauma when his wife’s repressed childhood memories came to the surface. The catalyst for this occurred when she learned about boarding school abuse suffered by the indigenous peoples of the United States, Canada, and Australia. This paralleled her own boarding school upbringing. Her missionary parents were required to send their children to Mamou Alliance Academy, a boarding school a thousand miles away from their station in the Ivory Coast. At this school, children experienced significant physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.