After graduating St. Johnsbury Academy in 1933, he went on to study at Middlebury College and the University of Chicago where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1938.
He was elected to the Vermont Senate for a total of eight consecutive terms In 1980, he retired from public life.
Governor Deane Davis appointed him to the Little Hoover Commission which reorganized the state government into agencies that largely still existed in 2008.
President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the National Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.
In 1959 he was appointed chairman of the social science department at Lyndon State College, a position he held until he retired as professor emeritus in 1979.