His father is Gordon Raymer, a US Navy pilot then attending the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
[4] Later, his family lived in Taiwan, where his father served as a Lockheed P-2 Neptune instructor pilot and mission planner with the Black Bat Squadron.
After leaving the navy, his father went to work in the Advanced Design Department at Lockheed and Dan ended up graduating from Royal High School in Simi Valley in 1972.
After three years (1987-1990) at Lockheed, he left to start his own company Conceptual Research Corporation (1990), and also teach at California State University, Northridge (1990-1993).
[citation needed] He regularly teaches conceptual design courses for aircraft and UAVs through the AIAA and other professional organizations.