Leo A. Kiesewetter has a Master's degree in Business Education and postgraduate work in business. He spent 29 years teaching and performing administrative work in high school and college. Fourteen of these years he was a department chairperson of business at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois. Earlier, he was an accountant for a real estate developer and then owned his own real estate company. After high school, he served two years in the military.