After serving as executive director and chief operating officer for the Aspen Institute from 1953 to 1965, he ran a cattle ranch in Woody Creek as well as an industrial-design company in Chicago. He co-founded the Aspen Center for Physics with George Stranahan in 1962. In 1975, Craig founded The Keystone Center, a Summit County-based think-tank that has tackled public policy debates on topics ranging from nuclear waste to natural resources to the AIDS virus. The organization was created after Craig was invited to Summit County by Bob Maynard, then-president of Keystone Resort. A California native, Craig served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He studied biology and philosophy at the University of Washington and Columbia University. As Scanlan pointed out in her statement, Craig was a renowned mountaineer. In 1953, he was selected to a team that would attempt to climb K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, located on the Pakistan-China border.