Co-founded the Vista Organization alongside business partner Herb Jaffe and the latter's son, Robert Jaffe.
Moved to Washington, D.C. in 1961 to work for Sargent Shriver, the director of the then-newly formed Peace Corps, and later followed Shriver to the Office of Economic Opportunity, the headquarters of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.
Graduated from the University of Illinois.
Spent a year working on a master's degree in journalism at the University of Missouri. He left school before completing that degree and worked as a journalist for a few years.