Eugene R. Martini (1915-1965) was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Friedrich Carl and Eugenia Wilhelmina Martini. He married Helen Elizabeth Brown (1906-1989) in 1938 and together had three children, Patricia, Claire, and Eugene Jr. Martini graduated from the University of Illinois in 1939 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in landscape architecture. For two years, he served as an instructor of landscape architecture at Massachusetts State College (later the University of Massachusetts), where he also performed graduate work in statistics and public administration. From 1941-1946 he was a land planning consultant with the Federal Housing Administration in Chicago and Atlanta. In 1946, he opened his own landscape architecture and planning office in Atlanta under the name of Eugene R. Martini Associates Landscape Architects, later becoming Martini and Associates, Landscape Architects and Planning Consultants. Upon his death in 1965, Harry J. Baldwin, Martini's associate partner, assumed ownership. Two years later, in 1967, the firm was renamed Baldwin and Associates.

Martini worked largely in Atlanta and the southeastern United States on a wide variety of project types, including subdivisions, public housing, shopping centers, schools, churches, mobile home parks, and land development projects. He was active in the profession, speaking at symposiums, universities, roundtable discussions, and garden clubs. He served on award juries and panels and contributed articles to a number of professional publications. Martini was a member of many organizations such as the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and served in many leadership roles, including as president of the Southeast Chapter and as second vice-president of the national organization of ASLA. In 1962, House and Home magazine presented him with an Award of Merit for Designs for Outdoor Living for the Brittany residential development in DeKalb County, Georgia.