After serving aboard the destroyer USS George K. MacKenzie in 1945–1946, he studied radio and television engineering at Central Technical Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.

[4] Balderson began his broadcasting career in 1949, as an engineer with NBC owned-and-operated radio station WRC-AM in Washington, D. C.[4] Desiring to be a part of the nascent television industry at the network level, he moved in 1950 to NBC's New York City headquarters studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza to work as an engineer and cameraman, spanning news, entertainment, and sports programming.

[1] In addition to such New York-originated live entertainment shows of the period as Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater, Balderson covered news events such as the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President of the U.S. in 1953, and was selected to be the sole pool cameraman inside the White House for Ike's meeting with outgoing President Harry S. Truman on Inauguration Day.

In the mid-1960s, he flew with President Lyndon B. Johnson across the Pacific Ocean, covering LBJ's Vietnam War visit to that war-torn southeast Asian country.

Balderson subsequently told a newspaper reporter that although he was video tape editor for the program's entire run, he "had no idea it was rigged".

[1] He was tapped as on-location videotape editor by NBC for many of the network's premier sports events during the 1960s–1980s, including baseball's World Series, NFL and college football, and the 1972 Winter Olympics from Sapporo, Japan.