Lee Payne

News Obituary Article

JASPER: Lee Payne, led Tech's industrial design unit

By DERRICK HENRY

Lee Payne was as versatile as industrial designers get.

He designed electric football games, an award-winning end table that resembles a wedge of Neapolitan ice cream, and the packaging for Chiffon soft margarine. His designs include Char-Broil grills, photographic studio setups for Olan Mills, and the original Hayes modem, said industrial design consultant Wendell Wilson of Marietta, who worked for Lee Payne Associates in Atlanta in the 1980s.

"Lee was easygoing but a perfectionist," said Mr. Wilson. "A product had to both look good and work well."

From 1976 to '88, Mr. Payne directed the industrial design department at Georgia Tech, where his students designed for NASA and pitched their designs for boat bras and cooler grills to manufacturers. His automobile design course was a campus favorite.

"His courses attracted students all across the campus," said Douglas Allen of Atlanta, associate dean of Tech's college of architecture. "He was tremendously talented, knew his material, had an extremely warm personality and a youthful fascination with the world and how things were made."

C. Lee Payne Jr., 69, of Jasper died Saturday at St. Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta of complications following surgery. The body was cremated. The memorial service is 2 p.m. May 24 at Episcopal Church of the Holy Family in Jasper. H.M. Patterson & Son, Oglethorpe Hill, is in charge of arrangements.

He landed a job in New York with the prominent industrial design firm Walter Dorwin Teague Associates in the early 1960s. He worked on high-tech electric football and hockey games and projects for Federal Express, Tupperware and General Electric.

One of his most enduring creations was the result of a contest by the Formica Corp. to show off its new ColorCore surfacing laminate. "He came up with a functional piece of furniture that looked like a big piece of Neapolitan ice cream, with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry," said his wife, Jennie McBride Payne. Mr. Payne placed second in the contest, and his end table is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Mr. Payne's reputation was such that he was chosen to be on the design team for Olympic torches for both the Salt Lake City and Atlanta Olympic games, helping devise a cost-effective manufacturing process.

While he was still running the Tech industrial design department, Mr. Payne earned a master's degree in art history from Emory University. He used his expertise to take Emory and Tech students on extended art history tours of Europe.

Mr. Payne even encouraged his employees to visit art museums, said Mr. Williams.

Survivors include a daughter, Lauren Ames of Atlanta; a son, Lee Payne III of Delray Beach, Fla.; and two grandchildren.

© 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution