Baxter has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University. He worked in the aerospace defense industry for nine years, doing stress and vibration analysis of flight-weight hardware at Pratt & Whitney; General Dynamics; Bell Helicopter. After business school he worked in the IT industry, including product marketing at Anixter; sales engineering at MCI; engineering design as telecommunications practice lead at OWP/P (an A&E firm now part of Cannon Design); and data center strategic planning at UBS AG. Project management was an overlay skill that Baxter applied in many of his different roles.