The son of a Chicago Police Officer, Rick grew up in the city and survived the Chicago Public School System. He was a standout high school athlete and accepted an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. After graduating from Annapolis, completing Naval Flight Training, and being designated a Naval Aviator, he was assigned to a fleet squadron, and served as the unit Legal Officer and then the aircraft maintenance Quality Assurance Officer.  Rick soon found himself in Southeast Asia, flying numerous direct combat support and combat missions.

Upon his return stateside, he was assigned as a Naval helicopter flight instructor in Pensacola, Florida. He was quickly assigned as a Standardization pilot and ultimately was promoted to model manager of the U.S. Navy TH-57 program.

His civilian career started with 5 years at a large FAR Part 91 flight department. He gained significant experience in the S-76, KingAir 200, Citation V, and Lear 45. He was then hired by American Airlines as a 727 Flight Engineer. After considerable experience on the Boeing 727, 757, and 767, he was hired into a management position with a New York City metro area corporate flight department.

While fulfilling the responsibilities of Safety and Training, Rick oversaw the complete re-write of his flight department’s Operations Manual. He maintained the momentum from the completion of the manual and rallied the department to become the eightieth company worldwide to achieve IS-BAO Stage One Registration.

He found the IS-BAO audit quite painful and he committed to producing a solution for operators that realized the immense value of this certification, but did not need to risk being demoralized by a negative, less experienced, or non-operational auditor to achieve this goal.

He completed his accreditation with IBAC (which he maintained through 2018), and formed ISBAOAudits.com. After an outcry from the industry, Rick formed the Business Aviation Safety Consortium (BASC) in 2016. Rick lives in Fort Worth, Texas with his wife of 30+ years, Cathy. Their daughter Madeleine is a Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer in the US Navy, son Michael is a F35 Maintenance Technician in the US Marine Corps, and their other son Kenny is a cadet at the US Coast Guard Academy.

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