Like the universe, which scientists say is continually expanding, the world around Clifton Henry has slowly been growing bigger and bigger. He grew up in the town of Doerun, Ga., a community of 900. Upon graduating from high school, he attended Davidson College, a liberal arts institution with 1,600 students.
Henry then spent a year working for World T.E.A.M. Sports, a not-for-profit sports organization centered on people with disabilities, near Charlotte, N.C. Next came law school at the University of Georgia, which has well over 30,000 students.
While there, Henry met his wife-to-be, Ashley, a native Chattanoogan. They had most of their classes together, became friends, and then “one thing led to another,” and in 2004, they got married.
When the Henrys graduated from law school, they didn’t return to Doerun or move to Scenic City; rather, they relocated to St. Simons Island, one of Georgia’s famous Golden Islands. The small resort community was a step up in terms of size for Henry, who enjoyed its natural beauty. It was also a good time for professionals involved in the real estate business. As an attorney who assisted with residential closings, Henry had all the work he wanted.
Then he bumped up against the edge of the world, or, more precisely, his wife became pregnant, and they decided to move to a bigger town. The decision about where to go was easy.
“Chattanooga was at the top of our list. Her mom and dad are here, and I’d visited the city several times and fallen in love with the blend of small and big town [attributes], the four seasons, and the ease with which you can make friends and get around. We couldn’t imagine a better place to raise our children,” Henry says.
With his family growing in size, and with a larger city to call home looming on the horizon, Henry also moved to increase the scope of his career.
“Miller & Martin was looking for a lateral associate with some experience in real estate. So I went from a firm with 18 attorneys to a firm with more than 200 attorneys, when you include its offices in Chattanooga, Atlanta and Nashville. That was a big change. But more than that, I’ve been able to expand the kind of work I do because of the clients we have.
So moving to Chattanooga has been a wonderful experience professionally, too,” he says.
Henry handles commercial transactions with a concentration in real estate acquisition, development and construction,
disposition and leasing. Accord-ing to his biography on the Miller & Martin Web site, his experience includes work in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, office space, retail and health care. Henry also advises institutional banking clients in secured lending transactions, commercial financing and workouts.
As a member of the Emer-ging Markets team at Miller & Martin, Henry also represents domestic clients with joint ventures overseas. His experience in this area includes advising healthcare services clients on the design and construction process in China, as well as acting as the liaison between the different specialists who work on a project. For example, Henry was the principal U.S. lawyer on negotiating the design and construction documentation for a hospital construction joint venture project near Shanghai.
“I get to work with lawyers who come from a completely different legal and cultural background than me, which is fascinating” he says.
Henry has also become a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accred-ited Professional, a designation that allows him to provide advice and assistance to clients concerning the design, construction and operation of green buildings.
“Having an attorney who’s a LEED AP doesn’t impact the process directly, but I am able to talk with the architect and contractor, understand what’s going on and communicate what should be going on. I also make sure the LEED components of a project are addressed in the contracts.
“I can also make my clients aware of the various tax incentives and economic benefits associated with green projects. Some people think the environmental and economic aspects of a project should be kept separate – that going green because of the financial incentives is like holding hands with the Devil – but the end result is the same, and that’s what counts,” he says.
Henry also appreciates the opportunity to handle closings locally for Habitat for Humanity.
“I love what they do, so I draw great satisfaction from that,” he says.
As Henry has embraced a larger world, he’s learned to enjoy working on projects both great and small. Whether he’s handling the closing on a single-family home or the details on a joint construction project overseas, he’s happy with what he’s doing.
“It’s all the same to me. One deal might have more zeroes than another, but the issues are the same. My job is to protect my clients and make sure their desires are represented. Besides, the owner of a Habitat house is just as concerned about the closing on his home as the person who has money at stake in China is about his investment,” he says.
Henry is content with the size to which his world has grown, and has no plans to continue pushing its boundaries. He relishes the opportunity to leave work, drive to his home on Signal Mountain, and take a walk with his wife and two children.
He’s also a member of a book club, along with a number of other attorneys, and has become a fan of novelist Cormac McCarthy. It’s easy to get Henry talking about “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men” and “Blood Meridian,” which he says had a tremendous impact on him.
It’s not easy to get him to talk about his other leisure time pursuits, mainly because he believes anything he mentions as being a hobby will make his wife laugh.
“I’d like to garden, but that’s more of an aspiration than something I actually do,” he says.
As a board member of the Arts & Education Council, Henry also gives back to the community that has afforded him with a good life. He especially appreciates the council’s focus on literature and education.
“Certain segments of our population don’t have the same opportunities, and the more we can do to provide those opportunities, the better,” he says.
While Chattanooga might not be as big as Chicago or New York City, it’s the perfect size for Henry. The same can be said of his place of employment and the family that welcomes him home at night.
Someday, though, he might bump up against the edge of things and want to see what’s on the other side. When that day comes, he can rest assured that no matter how big the world grows, he’ll continue to have an important place in it.