Born in 1948 in Racine, Wisconsin, Jim Jorgensen graduated from the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley. He then served as an officer in the U.S.
Marine Corps. He later earned his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business at the age of 24 and obtained his CPA certificate while working at KPMG. Following an advanced stock market class on Wall Street, he established his own major financial planning firm in California.