He achieved moderate grades in school and, having failed the entrance examination for West Point, he went to work briefly for his father's law partner whose death terminated the arrangement.

[1]: p.91  By the time of the Great Depression, Vance was production vice president in the company at South Bend, working with Paul G. Hoffman who would later take charge of the Marshall Plan and the Ford Foundation.

A series of financial mistakes by Studebaker's long-serving president Albert Russel Erskine, led to his suicide and the corporation's insolvency in 1933.

To Defense Secretary Robert Lovett, Vance reportedly commented "Bob, I understand that the Army has 60,000 trucks in Texas just sitting around.

A year later, in on October 31, 1955, Vance joined the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and worked there until his death on August 31, 1959.