After graduating from the University of Washington during the Depression with a degree in literature, he went to work as a reporter for The Seattle Times and wrote a column for the defunct Seattle Star. He opened a public relations company in the downtown YMCA in 1946 and handled a variety of political and commercial accounts for 20 years. He bought Seattle Guide Inc., which published a weekly entertainment-tourist guide, and established Nettle Creek Publishing Co. to publish his books.
Speidel was perhaps best known for starting Seattle's Underground Tours in 1955. About 120,000 people annually take the tours beneath Pioneer Square to see Seattle as it existed before the Great Fire of 1889 destroyed much of the downtown area.
