[1][2][3] Coleman was born on October 28, 1926, in Washington, DC and, as one of three children, grew up in Charleston, Illinois.

Following boot camp, he was shipped to the Pacific and spent the remainder of the war teaching young Marines how to be radio technicians.

[1] Coleman was quickly lured to join Ampex in Redwood City, California where he spent the rest of his career on perfecting video tape recording[6] and pushing the boundaries of high data-rate tape-recording.

He received both the SMPTE David Sarnoff Gold Medal[8] and the IEEE Vladimir K. Zworykin Award in 1970[2] and, subsequently, the Alexander M. Poniatoff Award at Ampex in 1971,[9] for his contributions to color video tape recording.

[11][12][13] His colleagues at Ampex included Charles Ginsburg, John Mallinson, and Neal Bertram.