Mr. Cavanaugh was born and raised in Western Massachusetts. He graduated from the U.S.Coast Guard Academy and served 30 years in the Coast Guard, retiring as a Captain. During his time in the Coast Guard he was stationed in California and New England, visited all 7 continents and circumnavigated the globe. He also attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, where he earned Masters degrees in Operations Research and Applied Mathematics.
After retiring, he worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a senior emergency management specialist and an incident management team leader. He has taught math at the college level, as a long-term substitute and summer school high school teacher, and tutored at the K-12 level. He has been an OLL family member since 2015. He has lived in Novato for over 20 years, has two adult children and one grandchild.