Before joining the University of Houston-Downtown business faculty in 2006, Hale was an engineering faculty member at both Ohio University and Colorado State University-Pueblo as well as an engineer at Lockheed Martin.

Hale was born and raised in State College, Pennsylvania, the first son of the late Dr. Leslie C. Hale, an A. Robert Noll Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus at Penn State.

Hale teaches a number of graduate and undergraduate classes, including operations management, quality management, research methods, and related subjects.

In 2012 Hale was elected the president-elect of the University of Houston-Downtown Faculty Senate, serving as president during the 2013–2014 academic year.

[5] In 2015, Hale became the managing co-author of a best selling university textbook in quantitative analysis/business analytics by Pearson.