Timothy Trainer, an attorney, was born in Japan. He worked in multiple federal government agencies and in the private sector. His non-traditional legal career included significant time focused on international trade issues. His work required extensive travel around the world, including numerous trips to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. His experiences led to him co-authoring a legal treatise for fifteen years, penning the novel, Pendulum Over the Pacific, and authoring a non-fiction book The Fortunate Son: Top, Through the Eyes of Others, about men who served in Vietnam with his father.