James Morgan McKelvey Jr. was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and is an alumnus of Ladue Horton Watkins High School. He wrote and published a Handbook on UCSD Pascal and Apple Pascal in 1986. After graduation from Washington University in St. Louis, McKelvey worked as a contractor for IBM in Los Angeles and in St. Louis. At the same time, he had jobs as a glassblowing instructor and founded Disconcepts, a CD cabinet manufacturing company.
