He later formed an aircraft manufacturing company in Rochester, NY[1][2] Greene was born into a wealthy San Francisco family in 1872.

His fascination with aviation began at twelve, when he performed his first experiment by jumping from the second storey of a building with an umbrella to slow his descent.

In 1908 the Aeronautical Society began a two-year rental agreement with the closed Morris Park Racetrack and invited the top aviators in the nation to come and experiment with aircraft.

[2] While Greene was working on an aircraft to compete for the $10,000 prize offered by publisher Joseph Pulitzer for the first airplane to fly from Albany, NY to New York City, he learned that Glenn Curtiss was ready to attempt the flight and in a show of good sportsmanship, he traveled to Albany to be present and to hold the wing of Curtiss's aircraft for the takeoff.

[4] In 1911, he made his way north into Canada where he eventually settled in Hudson's Hope, BC with his wife Mary Evangeline Hilliard of Waterloo, Ontario.