Short answers, pulled from the story.
Steve Winter was born in Dubuque, Iowa on the 8th of December 1957. He attended Catholic school for both grade school and high school before transferring to Iowa State University at Ames after two years of Catholic college.
In 1978 while attending college Winter worked part-time at a department store which carried a few wargames in its small games department. He began playing with the wargame The Russian Campaign by Avalon Hill and later played all day every Saturday after being introduced to the D&D game at an Iowa State Gamers meeting.
Winter began with TSR in May 1981 as a Games Editor and edited both Star Frontiers boxed games along with the Gangbusters games and the 1983 World of Greyhawk revision. He edited the Top Secret Companion and was promoted to Manager of Game Editors in 1984.
Jeff Grubb and Winter designed the Marvel Super Heroes RPG and they also co-wrote the adventure scenario that was adapted into the game Pool of Radiance. Winter wrote The Art of Three-Dimensional Gaming booklet for the Battlesystem Fantasy Combat Supplement and designed an SPI game called Sniper Patrol combining and expanding the older Sniper and Patrol games.
Steve Winter left Wizards of the Coast on the 14th of December 2011. This marked the end of a long tenure spanning decades within the industry after he worked as a producer for D&D and D&D Miniatures websites.