The author, who grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, has degrees from Wofford College (B.A.), Emory University (M.Div.), and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (D.Min.) In the first half of the 1960s, he served on the chaplaincy staffs of the Central State Hospital in Georgia and the South Carolina State Hospital. From 1966 to 1983, he was the chief chaplain at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. For the next sixteen years, he served as director of the Academy for Pastoral Education of the SCDMH. Summers was presented the Distinguished Service Award by the Mental Health Association in South Carolina.

In 2000 his popular book Hunkering Down: My Story in Four Decades of Clinical Pastoral Education was published. In various professional publications he has provided numerous journal articles, book reviews, and chapters for books. For the past ten years, some newspapers have included his articles on sports history and human interest stories. Many of these feature his special fondness for the era of the 1940s and 50s.

He and his wife, Marilyn Boyd Summers, have lived in their same home in Columbia for the past forty years. They have two grown sons and three grandchildern. His creative interests include photography, movies, hiking, reading, and a good nap after lunch.