Orin R. Woodbury was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. His uncle was LeGrand Richards. After he graduated high school, he began to study engineering at the University of Utah. He was called on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Hawai’i in 1940. He witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor, although he and the other missionaries didn’t know what it was at the time. As soon as he returned home from his mission, he received his draft notice and enlisted in Naval Aviation. He married and became a flight instructor. After the end of the war, he joined the navy reserves. He attended business school and founded the Woodbury Corporation, a successful mortgage company in Utah. He and his wife served as mission president in Hawai’i. He passed away in 2017.