Doan was born in 1894 in
North Bend, Nebraska. He was the youngest of three boys of Ira Doan, a physician and surgeon, and his wife, Hester Spencer. His middle brother died at age 3 before Leland was born, and his father had a heart attack and died when Leland was 7. The mother and boys moved to
Ann Arbor, Michigan where his older brother Wilson was enrolled at the
University of Michigan (UM). Doan graduated from
Ann Arbor High School and enrolled at UM where he met Ruth Alden Dow, also a student at UM. She was the daughter of
Dow Chemical Company founder
Herbert Henry Dow. They married in 1917 and Doan left school early for a job with Dow. Doan joined the sales department and discovered that all sales were the responsibility of a handful of individuals. To expand sales he established branch offices with numerous salesmen for each company specialty. To promote sales, he collected data on prospective customers, including hobbies. Over the years, he moved up the management ladder, developing markets and customers for new products in plastics and pharmaceuticals. He was promoted to General Sales Manager in 1929 and named a company director in 1935. In 1938 he became a vice-president and three years later, corporate secretary. ==Business==