How do I customize a table display with views
In order to do this I handled everything on the views-view-unformatted-{view_name}.tpl.php level.

I am not sure if it is the most efficient way of doing all of the work, but it works like a charm. If anyone has any suggestions on how to optimize the code, or if I should be putting this work in the template.php file please let me know, but as it stands this answered and solved my problem.

/* Issue:         In order to accomodate the appropriate style requirements of 
 *               this view we need to override with this file and handle the $rows
 *               in the following format. The standard Table Format for Views 
 *               does not provide what we want (refer to Description to understand
 *               what we wanted).
* Description:   Overriding the views-view-unformatted...tpl.php file so we can 
 *               better control view page. This View displays
 *               all the Employee Titles. Which is fine, but we want it in a 
 *               particular format:
 *  (headers)                  A                 B                 C
 *  (titles)              App Specialist   Batch Processor   C.........
 *                        App Developer    B..........       C.........
 * 
 * 
 * ==========================================================================
*/
?&gt;
&lt;?php 
    /* 
     Lets grab and collate all of the Employee Titles and the the headers for 
     each set of Employee Titles (Example of a set = all titles that start 
     with 'A', or 'B', etc. 
    */

    // Employee Titles.
    $titles = array();
    // Employee Title Headers.
    $title_headers = array();
    // Keep track of the character we are on.
    $first_character = '';
    // Keep track of the last character we were on.
    $last_character = '';
    // Header count for the iteration process.
    $head_count = 0;
    // Title count for the iteration process.
    $title_count = 0;    

    foreach ($rows as $row) {      
      $employee_title = strip_tags($row); //strip
      $employee_title_trimmed = trim($employee_title); //trim
      $first_character = $employee_title_trimmed[0];

      // We don't have the character saved.
      if ($last_character != $first_character) {
        // Increase count.
        $head_count++;
        $title_count++;
        // Fill the headers array.
        $title_headers[$head_count] = $first_character; // add the letter
        $last_character = $first_character; // update the last character
      }
      // Fill the employee title's array
      $titles[$title_count][] = array($employee_title_trimmed =&gt; $row);  
    }  

    /* Time to display the header and title arrays. */
    // We only want 3 columns, so that's what this variable ensures. if we 
    // wanted 4 or 2 columns we just change this variable and it will take effect 
    // throughout.
    $columns_limit = 3;
    // counter for the employee title headers.
    $count_header = 1;
    // Max counter for the headers.
    $max_count_header = $count_header + $columns_limit;
    // Counter for the employee titles.
    $count_list = 1;
    // Max counter for titles.
    $max_count_list = $count_list + $columns_limit;


    print("&lt;table&gt;");
    while($count_header &lt; sizeOf($titles)){ //never exceed size of titles
      print"&lt;tr&gt;"; // Header row starts.
      // Display 3 or less headers, depending on where we are in the array.
      for ($count_header; $count_header &lt; $max_count_header; $count_header++){
        print "&lt;th&gt;";
        print $title_headers[$count_header]; // Display header.
        print "&lt;/th&gt;";
      }
      print"&lt;/tr&gt;"; // Header row stops
      print"&lt;tr&gt;"; // Employee title row starts
      for ($count_list; $count_list &lt; $max_count_list; $count_list++) {
        print'&lt;td id="title-list"&gt;';
        print"&lt;ul name=\"$title_headers[$count_list]\"&gt;";
        foreach ($titles[$count_list] as $titles) {
          $title_value = array_values($titles);
          $title_entry = $title_value[0];
          print"&lt;li id=\"blue-li\"&gt;";
          print $title_entry; // Display the employee title.
          print"&lt;/li&gt;";
        }
        print"&lt;/ul&gt;";
        print"&lt;/td&gt;";
      }
      print"&lt;/tr&gt;"; // Employee title row stops.
      $max_count_header = $count_header + $columns_limit; // Update Header's Max
      $max_count_list = $count_list + $columns_limit;     // Update Employee's Max
    }
    print("&lt;/table&gt;");