[4][5] McKelvey first attended Colorado College and, after seeing a sculpture he created, his professor, Carl Reed, recommended he consider architecture for graduate school.
[11] Before graduating from college, McKelvey worked as a busboy in a restaurant, and spent two summers at an Alaskan fish processing plant.
[7] After graduating from college, McKelvey went to Tokyo to visit a friend, and while there, he co-founded English, baby!, a web portal and social network for students to create and take foreign-language online courses.
[12] The website offers vocabulary quizzes, grammar lessons, and a social network that connects English-language learners with English-fluent peers.
[17][18][19] In 2008, the two convinced their landlord to let them divide the floors of an empty building into semi-communal offices and rent them out;[19] this was the start of Green Desk.
According to him, his ownership of the fashion brand was part of his larger vision to revitalize US factories and restore them as economic drivers.