Lewels served as a captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and as a reconnaissance pilot in the Republic of South Vietnam in 1967-1968. He was awarded the bronze star and the air medal with oak-leaf clusters for his service in combat. He was a tenured associate professor and Chairman of the Departments of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso from 1972-1982. He served as a consultant on minorities and the media at the U.S. Department of Justice and at the Federal Communications Commission in 1972-1973. From 1982-2013 he was a Vice President and a Senior International Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch. He edited the Freedom of Information Digest at the University of Missouri and was a writer and editor at the U.S. Army Aviation Digest at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. From 1993 until 2000, Lewels served as Assistant State Director for West Texas and Southern New Mexico for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON),. He regularly contributed to the MUFON Journal and spoke at many MUFON conferences and numerous international conferences in the United States and abroad.He holds a Ph.D. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Missouri, an M.S. in Education from Troy State University, and a B.A. in Journalism from Texas Western College. He was certified as a hypnotherapist by the American Board of Hypnotherapy in 1995.