As a teenager attending the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, she held her senior prom, for the class of 1975, in the East Room of the White House.

[2][3] Bales trained as a photographer and worked as a photojournalist for the Associated Press, Newsweek, Money Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, The Topeka Capital-Journal, the Omaha Sun and also freelanced.

[7] In 2002, Bales wrote, with Laura Hayden, a novel, Double Exposure: A First Daughter Mystery, with a contemporary White House setting; in 2005, a sequel, Sharp Focus, was published.

Bales attended the December 26, 2006 – January 3, 2007 state funeral services and ceremonies for her father with her mother, and over the course of several days greeted mourners while President Ford's casket lay in state on the Lincoln catafalque in the Capitol Rotunda and during the public repose at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

That same day, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter announced that Bales had been named the carrier's ceremonial sponsor.

[13] On April 8, 2016, during a change of command ceremony aboard USS Gerald R. Ford and in recognition of her "extraordinary service as CVN 78 Ship Sponsor", she was named an honorary naval aviator by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson, thus becoming only the 31st person to receive this honor, and the first woman ever to be so honored.

[15] In 1984, along with her mother, Bales helped launch National Breast Cancer Awareness Month[16] with a joint appearance in an ad campaign.

[18] Susan Ford had a significant role in the Showtime television series The First Lady, in which she is portrayed by Dakota Fanning.