Kevork Keushkerian was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Aleppo, Syria and got his university education in Beirut, Lebanon. He worked in Saudi Arabia and immigrated to the United States in 1976, settling in California. He married Silva Dakessian in 1980 and has two grown children. He retired from the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2009 after serving 25 years, 9 as a math teacher and 16 as an assistant principal.