 After his parents' divorce, he moved with his mother to Italy for two years before the family returned to Florida.He began studying Russian in ninth grade at Duncan U. Fletcher High School in Neptune Beach and put his language skills to work helping HIAS assist Jewish refugee families from the USSR resettle in North Florida and Jacksonville's Sister City Association build a relationship with the Russian naval port of Murmansk.After briefly starting with nuclear engineering, Cavanaugh majored in Russian at the University of Florida.