Michael Gru­en­baum was born in 1930 in Prague. In 1942, he was sent to There­sien­stadt with his moth­er and sis­ter and remained there until the end of the war. He emi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States in 1950, grad­u­at­ed from MIT and Yale, served two years in the Army, and worked for the Boston Rede­vel­op­ment Author­i­ty and Mass. Dept. of Pub­lic Works before cofound­ing a con­sult­ing firm. He was mar­ried for fifty years to the late author Thel­ma Gru­en­baum; he has three sons and four grandchildren.