Harmon Avera

Harmon Q. Avera, 74, of Meridian, Idaho, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Friday morning, April 28th, 2023, at his residence.

Harmon Quentin Avera Jr. was born in Syracuse, New York, on March 5, 1949.  His father, Harmon Quentin Avera Sr, was a photogrammetric engineer and his mother Carolyn Avera was an accomplished artist who worked in multiple mediums.  The Averas moved to southern California when Harmon was a teenager. He graduated from U.C. Irvine with a double major in Biology and Chemistry.  

After college he worked as an industrial chemist for Kraft Foods.  He next worked for Interstate Electronics on a project testing ocean water samples for pollution as part of environmental compliance.  He decided the best way to manage the large amount of data that he was collecting was to use a computer.  He taught himself how to write a software program for this new device, and that was the beginning of his long career as a software engineer.

He met his wife, Janice (Jacobs) Avera, while they both worked for a small software company.  Several years into their marriage, Harmon accepted a job at a tech start-up in Boise, Idaho, to be the Director of Software Development.  The tech start-up company failed, but Harmon stayed employed in technology positions at several companies including Hewlett Packard and MarkMonitor.

Harmon was a man of keen intellect and many interests.  He took up running while he was a student at U.C. Irvine.  Once in the working world, he switched from running to cycling.  He had two close friends that he would go for long bike rides with on weekends and several cycling road trips.  In his fifties, Harmon attended cycling classes at Gold’s Gym until he decided he should start teaching the class.  He taught early morning Spinning classes at Gold’s Gym for over seven years before heading to work at Hewlett Packard.  Each July, he looked forward to watching coverage of the annual Tour de France bike race.

Harmon loved music, especially classical and jazz.  Harmon and Janice were season ticket holders with the Meridian Symphony for many years. His love of music led him to take up ballroom dancing with his wife.  He inherited an appreciation of art from his mother and enjoyed many art forms from ceramics to photography to Impressionist paintings. Harmon was also an avid reader of a wide variety of subjects from Shakespeare, Will Durant’s History of the World (all nine volumes), math and science books.  In recent years he closely followed the progress of the James Webb space telescope.  Harmon was a Renaissance man.

Harmon was a family man.  He was involved with his children as they grew-up.  The kids loved to have him read to them book series such as the “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” in the evenings before bed.  Most family vacations were spent camping in the mountains, or at the Oregon coast, or visiting family in California.  He enjoyed time spent in the kitchen cooking with his wife and entertaining friends & family.  After his wife worked for the Robert Mondavi winery, he developed a taste for better wines.  Harmon and Janice belonged to several wine clubs and enjoyed pairing wine with their meals. They traveled to Italy and France together tasting the food and wine in many regions including the Bordeaux and Burgundy wine regions of France, a shared goal on their “bucket lists”.

Words cannot adequately express how deeply missed Harmon will be by his family and friends. His family knew him as a strong, smart and compassionate man. Harmon was always willing to help with a problem or rejoice with you over good news. He was a loving father, and his children always knew “he was there for them”. To his wife, he was the “light of her life” and loving husband through almost 38 years of marriage. He really appreciated his friends and how those relationships enhanced his quality of life. He felt blessed by both his family and friends and the joy he experienced when he was with them.

Harmon is survived by his wife, Janice Avera; children, Lauren (Andrew) Robb of San Jose, CA and Douglas (Jessica) Avera of Boise, ID; siblings, Charlie (Janice) Avera, Sister-in-law Jeanne Avera, Marie Lynn Avera, Elizabeth (David) Hay, and Bill (Stephanie) Avera.  He was preceded in death by his parents, Harmon and Carolyn Avera, and brother, John Stapleton Avera.

A memorial service followed by a celebration of life will be held at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Nativity in Meridian, Idaho on May 27th at 2 p.m., and all are invited. The church is located at 828 W. Cherry Lane, in Meridian, across from Meridian Middle School.