 After graduating from high school in 1890 he was a bookkeeper at the Second National Bank, then entered Lehigh University to pursue a technical course.He graduated as a Civil Engineer in 1897, then for a year was a draftsman and assistant engineer for the Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railroad Company in Springfield, Illinois, then a member of the general engineering staff of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Philadelphia until 1899, when he again went west.Until 1903 he was in Chicago as an assistant engineer of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.