Richard has an undergraduate degree in Naval Architecture from the Indian Institute of Technology and graduate degrees in Naval Architecture and Civil/Structural Engineering from the University of Michigan and Tulane University. He started his career in the oil patch in 1976 with Friede and Goldman in New Orleans, a consulting firm that pioneered semisubmersible, drillship and jack-up mobile offshore drilling units. He moved to Houston in 1978 with Pace Marine Engineering Systems a marine consulting firm and was Director of Arctic Technology. He co-founded Omega Marine Engineering in 1985 which engineered the first floating production system in the Gulf of Mexico. Aker Engineering acquired Omega in 1991 and he was Vice President of the Marine group. Under his direction Aker became the predominant deepwater engineering group in the industry and executed most of global deepwater field development and front end floating production projects involving semi, spar, TLP and FPSO platforms. He joined KBR in 1999 as Vice President of Deepwater Technology and organically built a deepwater engineering group to support execution of EPC projects worldwide. He became Director of Granherne Americas in 2004 and Vice President Granherne Global operations in 2009. Granherne is the global consulting arm of KBR and the premier provider of field development planning, process, safety, marine, subsea flow assurance and integrity management services, with 200 technical professionals in four regions. Richard has authored over 70 technical papers in field development planning, deepwater technology and floating production systems in major offshore conferences and publications. He has actively participated in numerous industry committees, panels and forums including SNAME, SPE, DOT, API, ISO, OMAE, ASME, OTC and DeepStar to promote deepwater technology and development. He has dedicated his career to training the next generation of deepwater technical professionals.