He graduated from Northeast High School (Philadelphia) in 1947, and earned a BS degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 and then stayed for some postgraduate study.

[7][5] Later that same year, he took a job as Chief of the Nuclear Physics Section at American Machine and Foundry Company in Alexandria, Virginia.

He helped build a business making scientific instrumentation for the first rocket programs and vacuum chambers for spacecraft testing.

The next year he returned to NASA headquarters to work for the Manned Space Science Division as the Chief of the Instrumentation and Systems Integration Branch.

[6] While at NOAA, Administrator Calio led the effort to modernize NOAA's National Weather Service, and to develop the NEXRAD radar and the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System for the 90's (AWIPS 90), the first program of its kind to bring operational satellite data to the forecasting community.

His work resulted in the creation of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's NSTC Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Sustainability, which recommended the establishment of the interagency U.S.

[9] After leaving NOAA, Calio was Senior Vice President of the Planning Research Corporation in McLean, Virginia for four years.

[6][4] Calio died of congestive heart failure and lung cancer at his home on Whidbey Island on January 14, 2012, and was buried at sea.