Tricia Ann Regan was born in New Hampshire on December 13, 1972. She attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy. She was Miss New Hampshire and represented her home state in the Miss America 1994 pageant. Regan went on to study voice in Graz, Austria, and at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston before enrolling at Columbia University. She graduated from Columbia with a B.A. in history in 2000. Regan married investment banker James A. Ben in 2001.
