Rick grew up and spent most of his professional life in the eastern US - New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania. Even though he worked in what might be viewed as a stodgy industrial business in the US for 18 years (designing and manufacturing electrical distribution equipment) he has always traveled and now claims to have visited more than 100 countries. From mud-crawling in the caves of Costa Rica in 1982, his most recent extended adventure was a 4300km solo cycling trip from Malta to Dublin including the length of the Pyrenees. He just got the first entry stamp in his fourth (or is it 5th?) passport on a birding trip to Belize. His work for a US manufacturing firm took him for short trips with joint development partners to South Korea, France and Germany, and to manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic and Brazil. More recently he spent two years developing an engineering design center in Suzhou, China to design products for the Chinese market. Working and getting things done in a foreign culture have brought the best rewards, and he is looking forward to applying his managerial skills to assisting Kiva partners. Besides all that work, he is an avid photographer (since back when there was film!), skis, snowshoes, and flies airplanes.