J.D Vance Biography: Early Life, Career, And Personal Life
James David Vance popularly known as J.D Vance born James Donald Bowman (father’s name) is an American politician, attorney, author, and former state marine who is currently the 2024 elected vice president of the United States. He is also a member of the Republican party which he has served since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Ohio.
A lot about the current Vice President of the United States will be reviewed in this post from his early life, and education down to his position as the current president of the United States.
J.D Vance Early Life and Education
James David Vance was born James Donald Bowman on August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio. J.D Vance’s parents are Beverly Carol the mom and Donald Ray Bowman the Dad. Both parents divorced when Vance was still very young which led to the change of his name to the mother’s third husband’s name Bob Hamel.
Also Read: Masechaba Ndlovu Biography: Age, Husband, Tribe, Hairstyles
Vance has it marked that his childhood was never a good one as it was full of abuse and that his mother struggles with drug addiction. Vance and the sister Lindsey were raised by their maternal grandparents James and Bonnie Vance. Vance started his first job at age 17 as a cashier at Dillman Foods. After he graduated from Middletown High School in 2003, he went into the United States Marine Corps where he served as a military journalist with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Vance was deployed to Iraq in 2005 for six months in a non-combat role which included writing and taking photographs.
Also Read: Phil Knight Biography: Find out the great details of Phil Knight
From September 2007 to August 2009, Vance attended Ohio State University where he graduated with a bachelor of arts with majors in political science and philosophy. Vance also attended Yale Law School where he met Jamil Jivani a future conservative member of the Canadian parliament.
During his first year prof. Amy Chua persuaded Vance to begin writing his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” where he adopted the grandparents’ surname Vance as he was about to graduate from Yale in 2013 which the name continued in his marriage in 2014.
J.D Vance Early Career
After Vance had graduated from law school he worked for Republican senator John Cornyn and also spent another two years working as a law clerk for Judge David Bunning of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. After he had practiced law for two years, he moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a venture capitalist.
In June 2016, Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy was published by Harper. This book was on the New York bestseller list in 2016 and 2017. That same year, Vance joined the investment firm Revolution LLC which was founded by Steve Case who also cofounded AOL.
Review: DR. APJ ABDUL KALAM: Most powerful biography of DR. APJ Abdul Kalam
Between 2017 and 2018, Vance was a CNN contributor. In April 2017, Ron Howard signed on to direct the film version of Hillbill Elegy, which was released in November 2020 on Netflix.
In 2019, he cofounded venture capital firm Narya Capital in Cincinnati financially supported by Thiel, Eric Schmidt, and Marc Andreessen. Vance started Our Ohio Renewal an advocacy focused on education and other social ill has made mentioned in his memoir.
J.D Vance’s Personal Life
In his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Vance shared that he was raised in a low-income household by his single mother and grandmother.
Vance met Usha Chilukuri in 2013 while both were studying at Yale Law School. The couple married in Kentucky in 2014 in an interfaith ceremony, as Usha is Hindu and Vance is Christian. Their wedding included a Bible reading by Vance’s close friend, Jamil Jivani, and a blessing from a Hindu priest. Usha later worked as a law clerk, first for Brett Kavanaugh, who was an appeals court judge at the time, and then for Chief Justice John Roberts.
Vance grew up in a “conservative, evangelical” Protestant environment. By September 2016, he had distanced himself from active participation in any Christian denomination but was contemplating converting to Catholicism. In August 2019, Vance was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He chose Augustine of Hippo as his patron saint, explaining that he converted because he became convinced that Catholicism was true and found Augustine’s intellectual approach to Christianity appealing. Vance also noted that Catholic theology aligned with his political views, and that Peter Thiel had influenced his decision to convert.
