Biography

His father's death set the course for his life as it brought the revelation that men in his family die young.  That came as a shock and caused him to set off to cram a lifetime of experience into too few years.  He's now 59 and still in perfect health.  Though he already has that lifetime of experience his philosophy of living won't change.

In reverse order, this is how he's used those years:

Presently, he works as the Director of Finance and the Accountant for an important non-profit corporation headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida  Rick is totally dedicated to the cause and will do anything in his power to support the mission and it founders.

When not otherwise involved, he enjoys a full life which includes golf, boating, fishing, motorcycle riding, swimming, sunning, and all the indulgences of the southwest Florida lifestyle.  He parties with new friends and enjoys visits from family and old friends.  He stays current and continues to read, research, and learn.

His prior experience in the workforce was three years ending in 2009 as Controller for the Sundial Beach & Golf Resort and the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club on Sanibel Island.  It was a stimulating experience and one he needed to bring himself current with today's business practices.  He enjoyed the work and met some unique characters.

The prior six years were spent freelancing as a ghostwriter and as a member of his ex-wife's real estate team.  He doesn't discuss ghostwriting projects and will deny involvement with any particular project.  The real estate business had $8 million in annual sales at its peak and he invested privately in condos, building lots, and single family houses.

Before settling in Florida, he spent two years traveling and writing his third novel On the Road Again.  It was written in the voice of Jack Kerouac who Rick considers the greatest American writer.

The prior two years were spent enjoying family and writing his second novel Involuntary Separation, Corporate Downsizing Gone Fatally Wrong.  He poured his heart and conscience into that novel and is extremely proud of every aspect of it.  A fictionalized account of real events inside BP, it was written to start a national dialogue on the issue of corporate downsizing.  He also wrote a financial manual during that period called Secrets of Early Retirement which is no longer in print.

The previous eight years were spent at BP.  He started as an accountant in Products Trading and quickly advanced and learned.  In his first position he changed a process and saved the company a million dollars annually.

His philosophy of life combined with a mid-life crisis at age 40 brought about the urge to immortalize himself.  He wrote his first novel Cat Fever  while still a BP employee.  He doesn't recommend that novel but still has signed copies available through Amazon.com.

Eventually he became a BP Senior Financial Analyst and wrote computer models and countless financial reports.  He observed the corruption of one of America's original great corporations by one of Britain's most evil men.  When he refused to participate in a brutal corporate downsizing his job was eliminated.

Before BP he worked twelve years at the Lincoln Electric Company in the infamous Lincoln Incentive System. During the last years of that period, he earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Cleveland State University. In the middle years, he helped his wife and mother raise the kids. During the early years he lived a bachelor's life playing golf and pool, pursuing women, gambling, drinking, and otherwise chasing life experience.

He was born in Pennsylvania and spent his first years in an Allegheny Mountain coal-mining town. The family escaped to San Francisco before settling in a suburb of Cleveland where he grew up enjoying a middle-class lifestyle and old-fashioned family values.

Intertwined in that life he invested in real estate and the stock market, traded bond futures and index options, and counted cards at Blackjack tables. He was sued and defended himself, even winning a case in Ohio's Court of Appeals and beating the IRS in tax court. He climbed mountains and glaciers and explored deserts, caves, and rain forests. He flew in a hot air balloon, bungie jumped, hang-glided, shot the rapids, skied, and scuba dived. He dined in exclusive restaurants and dirt-floor cantinas. He worked on a shrimp boat and witnessed a murder. He slept in the fanciest hotels and camped under the stars. He's been in bar fights, been pepper sprayed, and spent nights in jail. He came face-to-face with rattlesnake and grizzly bear and admired nature's wonders from her most beautiful redwood forest to her most savage devastation.  He enjoyed desert sex and Arctic Circle sex, honeymoon-suite sex and trailer-park sex.  He soaked in desert hot springs and swam in mountain lakes. He's been to Roswell and Area 51 and watched a Space Shuttle blast off.  He waded across the Rio Grande and kayaked across Prince William Sound. He hitchhiked across the country and flew across oceans.  He caught King Salmon and watched Humpback whales. He was chased by Indian braves and panhandled by Indian alcoholics. He hit a golf ball further than Tiger Woods and saw more of America than John Muir.

As important as education and experience are to a full life are the people one meets and he's been privileged to meet some characters.  From the murderer to the philanthropist, the Nobel scholar to the Hopi elder, the billionaire to the bag lady, the corporate executive to the limo driver, the Aztec stud to the Korean lesbian, the librarian to the stripper, the rock star to the groupie, the laid-back Jamaican to the proper English Lord, the politician to the priest, the whore to the nun, the lunatic boss to the perfectionist golf pro, the cowboy just wanting a bourbon and a hot meal to the Chairman of the Board bent on ruling the world, he learned something from them all.

Though hardly the sort of life of which biographies are demanded, it's not yet over.