Clayton is an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe of Montana. He was born and raised on the Crow Indian Reservation and is a member of the Whistling Water Clan. His clan father from the Greasy Mouth clan served on a battle ship in World War II and gave him his Crow name "Fights on Water".
He began his career with the Indian Health Service (IHS) in Finance at the Billings Area Office and then transferred to IHS Headquarters in Rockville, MD in 1991. Mr. Old Elk serves as a Health System Specialist with the IHS Office of Resource Access & Partnerships. He previously served as a Chief Executive Officer for the IHS Crow/Northern Cheyenne Hospital in MT and recently returned to the Washington D.C. Area.
He has a varied employment history in the private sector which includes: six years in Commercial Bank Lending in Billings, MT, Phoenix, AZ and Washington DC; Executive Director for Natural Resources Development with the Native American Rights Fund in Denver, CO; four years with the Crow Tribe; and three years as a financial accountant for Shell Oil Company in Houston, TX.
He majored in Business Administration at the Montana State University System in Bozeman and Billings, MT. His wife, Georgianna Old Elk, is a member of the Ft. Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of MT and also employed with the IHS. Together they have three children and five grandchildren. Mr. Old Elk and his family participate in Native traditional activities and serves as a cultural advisor to IHS and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.