John Paulsen moved with his family to Santa Maria, California from Fresno, when he was a child, and later starred on the Santa Maria High School swim team. He attended Southern Cal, where he was on the swim and water polo teams, graduating in 1937 with a degree in business and began work with the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Nebraska. During World War II he served in the US Navy aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga. After the war he worked as a salesman with the St. Regis Paper Company near San Francisco, although he and his wife eventually settled back near Santa Maria after his retirement.
United States