Dr. Leonard is a native of South Carolina, as are his parents, his brother, and most of his relatives as far back as seven generations. He grew up in Dallas, Texas and attended high schools in Dallas, Houston, and Minneapolis. He obtained his undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and remained at Hopkins for medical school, graduating in 1971. He then completed a general surgery residency at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver and has obtained board certification in general surgery. He served two years as a major in the United States Air Force Medical Corp as a general surgeon stationed in Northern California before returning to Johns Hopkins for plastic surgery residency, which he completely in 1979. He remained in Baltimore for addition subspecialty training in surgery of the hand and a maxillofacial trauma fellowship. In 1980-81 he served as chief of plastic surgery at Baltimore City Hospital (now Bayview Medical Center) and full time faculty at Hopkins. During the same year he completed certification by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. In 1981 he joined the full time faculty at the University of Utah where he introduced microsurgical procedures not previously performed in the intermountain area. In 1986 he left the university to enter private practice in Salt Lake City. He passed the examinations for the Certificate of Added Qualification in Surgery of the Hand in 1990, the first year that the exam was offered to plastic surgeons.