Leo held multiple patents, including his most popular item, Formital, a stamped aluminum product for use as a base for plastic auto body filler.

Frankowski lived in Russia for four years with his wife and adopted teenage daughter, but at the time of his death, he had separated from them and had moved back to the United States.

[3] Though he had tinkered with short science fiction for several years, Leo's writing career began in earnest in the early 1980s when he was invited to join what became the National Science Fiction Writer's Exchange, a now-defunct Detroit-area group founded by Guy Snyder, and whose membership included Lloyd Biggle, Ted Reynolds and future published author Ann Tonsor Zeddies.

Members read manuscripts aloud, which were then critiqued; from the beginning, Leo's stories related to time travel were well received by the membership.

He wrote Lord Conrad's Crusade in collaboration with Rodger Olsen, which his then-publisher Baen rejected 'for "bad writing" (an explanation Frankowski doubted).