He was born on March 23, 1951, and raised in Mission City, Minnesota. In 1958, when he was a seven-year-old, his grandmother and father were killed in a car accident in which they both drowned, and MacGyver grew up with his mother. His grandfather, Harry Jackson (who calls him "Bud"), played by actor John Anderson, acted as his father, but moved away in 1967 when MacGyver was sixteen, worked for a period in Alaska, sending money to MacGyver and his mother, and eventually settled down as a farmer in Minnesota after MacGyver had left. When he was ten years old he got his first chemistry set. In his early teens MacGyver had a traumatic experience with the accidental death of friend Jesse by a bullet from a falling gun. Throughout his childhood, in his youth and in adult age, MacGyver is an active player of ice hockey, having played in his local hockey leagues and coached for a minor league team; he is also a supporter of the Calgary Flames. He feels that he could have made the National Hockey League, but chose to give up before he was good enough. MacGyver also admitted to loving museums as a kid. In his childhood he meets Jack Dalton. When MacGyver was nineteen, his mother died after a brief illness.
After high school MacGyver went to Western Tech where he graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor's degree in physics and chemistry, having studied under Julian Ryman, a man who also had an ability to fix things with everyday objects and was probably influential on MacGyver. After graduating from college he turns down an offer to work at the nearby nuclear power plant and it is revealed that he had shortly served during the Vietnam War in a bomb defusing team. MacGyver has also been an enthusiastic race car driver and was quite successful before an accident put him out of the business. Eventually he moves to Los Angeles where he has a number of scatter jobs, including working as a taxi driver for Jack, until 1979, when he accidentally meets Peter Thornton, an agent at the Department of External Services (DXS). When MacGyver conveniently saves Thornton's life using a paper clip, a wrench and shoelaces, MacGyver is also offered at job as a field agent at the DXS. He keeps this job until 1986 (season 2 pilot) when Pete is offered a job as Director of Operations at the Phoenix Foundation. MacGyver follows him and works in a similar role for the Foundation for the next six years, finally leaving in 1992.
