Personal: Male. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, USA.

Rosenbaum, son of an Austrian Jewish department store merchant, was a model airplane fiend as a boy. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1935 in aeronautical engineering, and joined Convair in 1936. He worked on aircraft structure stress analysis for Convair's seaplanes and airliners, eventually becoming Chief of its Structures group. This was followed by assignments as Project Engineer for the T-29 and C-131 aircraft. He was then assigned to the Atlas program, working in increasingly responsible management positions, culminating in Vice President of Engineering before leaving the Atlas program in 1965. He then became Convair's Director of Aircraft Programs, responsible for the F-106 interceptor and the experimental STOL Charger aircraft, a superior design that lost to the OV-10. Rosenbaum retired in 1969.