Dreyfus enlisted in the United States Navy after high school, where he learned to be an electronics technician and worked on radar repair.

It was during that era that he adopted the trademark red vest as university chancellor in order to be recognizable and accessible to students on campus.

A life-changing event for Dreyfus came in 1975 when he travelled to China as a representative of American colleges and universities, and became convinced of the danger of a one-party system.

The following year, he launched an unconventional, populist campaign for governor, and traveled the state in a painted school bus (affectionately dubbed "The Red Vest Whistle Stop Special").

An effective public speaker during the campaign, Dreyfus's most memorable quip was that states should be sovereign in most areas of law-making and that the federal government's role should be limited to only three things: "defending our shores, delivering our mail and staying the hell out of our lives."

"[4] With only $100,000 to spend in the primary contest, Dreyfus criss-crossed the state in his unreliable red school bus, which featured a student band, gaining free media attention to make up for the TV ads he couldn't afford to buy.

Dreyfus beat Kasten in the September GOP primary, and went on to defeat then-incumbent Acting Governor Martin Schreiber, a Democrat, with about 55 percent of the vote.

However, Dreyfus was a social moderate who, in 1982, signed the nation's first civil rights legislation barring discrimination against gays and lesbians in jobs and housing.

In televised debates prior to the election, he overcame the problem of name recognition with the electorate, as well as doubts about his experience and competency for the position.

In Dreyfus' final year in office, 1982, the state had a budget deficit of nearly $1 billion and a 12 percent unemployment rate.

When asked in a 2005 interview for Wisconsin Eye what he considered the most important decision of his time in office, he said "building the school of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison."

His view and decision proved to be prescient when in 1998 the discoveries of James Thomson, an obscure researcher at that school, opened up the many possibilities of stem cells and their uses.

[citation needed] In 1985, he started a consulting firm, making speeches and advising the state on higher education policy; Dreyfus became a popular fixture on the lecture circuit.

Dreyfus spoke out against an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that would have banned gay marriage and civil unions, which passed in 2006.