 Baida was born in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated from the Park School of Baltimore.He graduated from Harvard College (B.A., magna cum laude, English, 1972), Boston University (M.A., 1973, creative writing), and the University of Pennsylvania with an M.B.A. in 1979.He was the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's director of direct mail fundraising from 1984 through 1999.