H. Michael "Mike" Weaver was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and graduated from Greensboro Senior [now Grimsley] High School in 1955. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and went on to graduate from the university’s law school. In 1961 Weaver returned to Greensboro to work for his family’s realty business, Weaver Investment Company, adopting an open-housing policy.
During the 1960s Weaver served on the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and for a year as the head of the housing committee of the Human Relations Commission. In 1967 he and his father, W. Herman Weaver, founded the Weaver Foundation. Weaver retired in 1999 and continued to work with the Foundation.