Lance was born in Bloomington, Illinois and grew up in Decatur, Illinnois. He went to college in Washington, D.C., where he worked on political campaigns on Capitol Hill, and then to the University of Pittsburgh for graduate school. He then worked at the National Gay Task Force, was president of the Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, and served on the board and as chair of the Hetrick-Martin Institute. He moved to Chicago and worked at the Windy City Times, moved to Stamford, Connecticut to work as an editor at another newspaper, and finally came to Vassar in April of 2000 as speech writer and letter writer for President Fergusson. Now he is the Director of Development Communications at Vassar and the editor of the Taconic Weekend.