He was the youngest of three children born to John Rulon Hales, an artist who worked in advertising primarily, and his wife, Vera Marie Holbrook.

[2] Hales played baseball while he was a student at Great Neck High School and then later at the University of Utah (U of U).

[2] Hales married Mary Crandall, whom he met in New York the summer before his sophomore year of college, in the Salt Lake Temple on June 10, 1953.

Crandall, who was a student at Brigham Young University, had moved from California to New York shortly before she met Hales.

During his professional business career, Hales served in executive positions with four major national companies.

To ensure a broad perspective of the business, Hales convinced management to let him work some on the factory floor and also in stocking razors in drug stores.

While Hales was a graduate student at HBS he served in the LDS Church as an elders quorum president.

Hales served three times in the church as a bishop (in Weston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; and Frankfurt, Germany).

[citation needed] During his first decade as a general authority, Hales was given assignments related to the physical and financial operations of the LDS Church.

He oversaw a reduction in the number of the church's welfare farms and also divestment from the Utah and Idaho Sugar Company.

[15] He served as the presiding bishop until 1994, during which time he emphasized the importance of the principles of the church's welfare program.

[2] He was ordained an apostle on April 7, 1994, filling a vacancy created by the death of Marvin J. Ashton.

In September 2017, he was again hospitalized and a church spokesman noted that, in view of the recommendations of attending physicians, Hales would not participate in the upcoming General Conference.