A former oarsman at the University of California, Berkeley, Ed won the Pacific Coast Sculling Championship three years in a row and was chosen to represent the United States at the 1940 Olympic Games.

Due to the outbreak of World War II, the games were cancelled and Ed joined the Army Air Corps as a P-38 pilot instead.

He founded the Lake Merritt Rowing Club in 1960, and established a program of crew for high school students.

Ed envisioned crew as a sport that could provide young athletes with both excellent physical training and the confidence to succeed in life's most challenging endeavors.

To provide a framework for that vision, he incorporated the Strokes as a California nonprofit corporation and it became chartered as Explorer Post 8 and 9 of the Boy Scouts of America, Piedmont Council.