Rick has been teaching history in Arizona schools since 2008, AP US History since 2014, and animation since 2006. Having grown up in an arts-oriented environment on the east coast, Rick’s interest in art and history led him to an interdisciplinary doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania.

After earning a bachelor’s degree with honors in history, Rick earned a master’s degree from Penn in American Civilization. During his doctoral studies, Rick became interested in television’s effect upon children, and he left his doctoral program prior to dissertation to develop educational television programming.

Rick had taught developmental reading at colleges and prep-schools in the east and spent over twenty years on the creative side of television production in broadcast and cable. He worked in New York City government as an Urban Fellow in the Office of the Special Assistant to Mayor John V. Lindsay and as a free-lance writer for the Village Voice and various Ski publications.  During his career in the television industry Rick was a guest lecturer in animated graphics at Cooper Union. He received numerous industry honors, including two Emmy Awards.

Then, after witnessing the collapse of the World Trade Center and picking up debris from the catastrophe that had blown into their front yard in Brooklyn, Rick and his wife, Maria, moved to Prescott in 2005.

Maria is a retired clinical psychotherapist. Rick and Maria have a son who lives in Brooklyn and a dog who lives with them in Prescott.