Pete started swimming competitively in 1948 in AAU age group meets in California. He set a school record in the 50 free in high school; it lasted ten years. He also swam at AAU meets up and down the Central Valley in California, where he lived until he graduated from high school. Pete then swam at Yale for three out of four years, as one year of school got in the way. Pete went on to get his PHD in Microbiology and ended up working as a professor at Yale. He then left the sport for 10 years. 

In 1977 Pete re-started swimming with the Lansing Masters and swam ten years as a Michigan Master. He attended his first National Championship meet in 1983 and placed third in an event. Pete moved to Minnesota in 1987 and had his first Minnesota meet experience on a cold (15 below) January day in 1989 at Cooke Hall. He had no idea how well he swam, but at the end of the meet they decided to have relays, and nobody picked him, so he must not have been that impressive. By the end of 1989 he started training with the STAR team. He went to his first Nationals Meet as a Minnesota swimmer in Grand Forks after being persuaded by Vicky Sandberg to attend. On that trip, Pete met Sarah Hromada, Steve Nelson, and (Hall of Famer) Wayde Mulhern. Pete also got to swim against (Hall of Famer) Roger Bosveld that year who touched him out in the 200 free; he did manage to return the favor in the 100 free. Pete swam with STAR for about six years, and then took a sabbatical from team workouts. 

Pete came back in the middle 1990s to Tina Neil's group at Macalester College, just a couple of miles from his house. He helped (Hall of Famers) Paul and Mary Beth Windrath and Wayde when they staged the two Long Course National Championships at the University of Minnesota Natatorium. In 1990, he was part of a National record relay team for the 200+ age group with Paul Windrath and friends. In the 1993 National Championships held in Minnesota he missed most of his events because of an illness, but managed to get third in the 1500 meter free on the last day of the meet. One of Pete’s goals was to break 60 seconds in the 100 free when he turned 60. He tried throughout the 1997-8 season, and the closest he got was 60.12. 

When Pete turned 75 he went to the Long Course Nationals in Omaha and had a really good meet, reuniting with some friends from Michigan. He also saw himself moving up in the national ranking considerably. When he looked at the MN LMSC “state” records for the 75-79 age group, he realized that he could make a dent in them. Pete started going to one national or international meet a year, and finished first in the PanAm Games (200 backstroke) and the YMCA nationals (1650 free). In the National Senior Games meet he had his best 50 backstroke time since 2007. Pete has registered 58 National Top Ten swims over his 32 years of Masters swimming participation. Pete recently (2014) joined a group of swimmers at the St. Paul YWCA and has found a new swimming home, coached by Beth Peterson, less than a mile from his home.