Carter LeCraw was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Georgia Tech on a tennis scholarship and graduated from there in 1971 with a degree in Industrial Management. He then completed Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode and served four years in the Navy as a Supply Corps Officer. After his Navy career, Carter entered the financial services field and received the Certified Financial Planner® designation in 1987. He later founded what is now American Values Investments in 1997.

Carter is active in Republican politics and ran for Tennessee state senate in 2020. He has written articles for the Hungarian Conservative Journal, a publication of the Danube Institute in Budapest, Hungary. He is a board member of the Danube Institute, USA and a member of the Philadelphia Socieity. He is married to Debbie LeCraw and has one son, Peter. He enjoys tennis and pickeball, is a member of Marvin’s Chapel Methodist Church, and lives in Gray, Tennessee.