Career
He helped to found both the Automobile Club of America (currently known as the American Automobile Association) and the Aeronautical Club of America. He was an avid balloonist and competed in the sport of balloon racing. At the age of 25, in 1888, Hedge joined the First Signal Corporation of the National Guard in New York City.
He worked out of their recruiting office until 1898.
By the end of this period, he had risen to the rank of Captain. He was referred to as "Captain" for the remainder of his life.
Hedge managed the Manhattan offices of Pettingill & Company, a large New York advertising agency. In April 1904, he purchased the New York offices, and it became the Homer West. Hedge Company.
At the time, this was one of the largest advertising agencies in the United States. Their customers included Equitable Life Insurance, the Electric Vehicle Company, and the Remington Arms Company.
On June 7, 1899, a group of gentlemen auto racers met at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan and founded the Automobile Club of America, an organization that became the American Automobile Association. At that meeting, Homer West. Hedge was elected secretary, a post he retained for one year. Hedge was the author of a book on ballooning, The American Aeronaut (1907).