Frank Harry Columbus was born in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, on February 26th, 1941. He joined the army upon graduation from high school (1960-1962) and went on to complete his education at the University of Maryland (1960-1964) and George Washington University (1964-1971).

In 1969, he became the Vice-President of Cambridge Scientific and worked there until 1975. In 1975, he was invited to work for Plenum Publishing (now a part of Springer), where he was the vice president until 1985, when he founded Nova Science Publishers.