Henry did well at Tulane, graduating second in his class of 16 in May 1948, at the age of 18. GE offered employment to the top three ranked graduates, and Henry accepted, beginning a 35-year career with General Electric. His first position was in Erie, PA. Henry was accepted into GE's Advanced Engineering Program, a full-time three-year in-house engineering graduate school designed in the 1930s by Robert E. Doherty to overcome the deficiencies in American engineering education, and transferred to Fort Wayne, Indiana. In August 1949, Henry moved to Schenectady for the final two years of GE's Advanced Engineering Program.