Following education in Canada, he began his professional career in 1917 as chief chemist for the Aetna Explosives Company of Gary, Indiana.

He was then employed by the Western Cartridge Company of East Alton, Illinois, where he patented the Ball Powder manufacturing process in 1933.

[5] Following his retirement from Olin Corporation in 1956, Olsen and his wife purchased a winter home in Antigua from which they explored the ancient Arawak realm.

He commissioned a house designed by Tony Smith in Guilford, Connecticut, on a pink granite outcrop above Long Island Sound, that was completed in 1953; Olsen's needs were a gallery to display his art, guest accommodations for visiting artists and their living quarters.

Threatened with destruction by a developer, a campaign by Marjorie Olsen, the collector's daughter-in-law, enabled Preiss and Quaytman to purchase the house.