Dana Chisholm was born in August 1969 in Rock Hill South Carolina. By all accounts she was a decent student and was on the cheerleading team in high school. Growing up, like a lot of teenagers Dana experimented with drugs and at one point she ran away from home. However, she eventually went on to graduate from high school and enroll at college to study business. After graduating from college in 1993, Dana moved to Washington DC where she eventually got a job as a secretary at a think tank.