D.J. Chauvin was born in Chauvin in 1941. He held jobs in a shrimp factory, grocery store, and pipeyard before graduating from Nicholl's State College and working as a schoolteacher and insurance adjuster. In 1970, he joined the oil industry as a mud engineer and then a trainer. He was blinded in an automobile accident in 1988 and has been an oil sales representative since, working alongside his wife, Lucy.