[2] After a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Korea, he completed a degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he also worked for the student newspaper The Daily Cardinal.
He served 13 years as a promotion manager at WBAY-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
In 1968, he began contributing editorial cartoons to the Brown County Chronicle, a weekly newspaper.
His editorial cartoons on local, regional and national politics, the Green Bay Packers, world events, and much more appeared in the Brown County Chronicle and after 1976, its daily successor, The Green Bay News-Chronicle, from 1968 through 2005.
In 1997, The News-Chronicle published The Packer Chronicles, a collection of Lahey's cartoons about Green Bay's hometown football team (the players, the coaches, and the fans).