He received his B.S. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. from The Pennsylvania State University and was the first African-American to receive a PhD. in the Department of Agricultural Engineering at Michigan State University in 1963. Dr. Finney served as a military officer from 1963-65. He then accepted a position with USDA/ARS in 1965, where he has served as Chairman of the Agricultural Marketing Research Institute, Assistant, Associate and the Director of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Senior Policy Analyst in the office of the Science Advisor to the President, and Associate Director of the ARS 12-state North Atlantic Area. In 1992, he was appointed to the number two post as Associate Administrator in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), from 1993-94 he served as the Acting Administrator of this agency. ARS operates 375 research groups at over 100 locations in the United States and in seven foreign countries on an annual budget of $700 million. He continued with USDA until his retirement in 1995. His early research was on drying cereal grains and the physical properties of agricultural products. He continued with research on instrumentation and non-destructive techniques for measuring the quality of food and other agricultural products.