[1] In the summer of 1966, he was employed at the Intermountain Natural Gas Company in Boise, Idaho.

[1] In the summers of 1967 and 1968, he served as the director of the Spirit Lake Girl Scout Camp in Toutle, Washington.

[1] Whaley was in the United States Marine Corps in 1968, and in private practice of law in Georgia from 1968 to 1969.

Whaley also argued a case in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, Texaco Inc. v. Hasbrouck.

Whaley was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 30, 1995, and received his commission the same day.