LeRoy Lowery, III was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. Educated in the public school system in cities across the country, he graduated from Lima (Ohio) Senior High School. He earned a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University and a MS degree in Systems Management from the University of Southern California.

After graduation from Howard, he spent 2 years as an officer in the US Army. His work experience after leaving the military was mostly with the federal government – the General Services Administration, Navy Department, NASA, Department of Energy, United States Information Agency (USIA), and the State Department. He held various positions including Aerospace Engineer, Inspector, Spacelab Program Manager, and Assistant Inspector General. At NASA he was designated Manager, Spacelab-Mir Mission. In this capacity he worked with Russian and American scientists, engineers, cosmonauts and astronauts in planning the first flight of the Shuttle to Russia’s Mir space station.

As Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Inspections, he was the only African-American male member of the Senior Executive Service in the Department of State. In this position he supervised an office of 54 persons, including Ambassadors and Senior Foreign Service personnel, in the conduct of inspections of all 256 of the US embassies and missions abroad. In USIA and State, he met with and briefed inspection report findings to Ambassadors and Assistant Secretaries of State, U.S. Senators and Representatives, as well as heads of other federal agencies.

His duties have taken him to Japan, Russia, Iceland, France, Haiti, Latvia, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya, Slovakia, Eritrea, Namibia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and England.

From January 2002 through August 2004, Lowery served as the vice-president and chief operating officer of the Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Foundation, Inc.