Rick has an extensive background spanning over 30 years. He is the father of four amazing and inspirational young adults three of whom are currently serving in the British Army with his youngest still studying. He is a British Army veteran himself and has been across the globe in several volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments.
He is also a former UK firefighter with a career that culminated in being a fire tactical commander. He also worked as a Crown Premises Fire Inspector with the UK Government and was the lead for fire safety enforcement in English prisons.
He is a certified performance coach, action learning facilitator, change manager, and experienced emergency/crisis management and leadership professional. Since leaving the fire and rescue service he has worked in Nuclear Decommissioning in roles spanning from leading a change management capability, program and project management, operations management, nuclear intelligence / independent oversight, security, and resilience, to emergency planning. He has worked for the World Association for Nuclear Operators (WANO) as a peer review team member at a nuclear power plant in France.
He is qualified in aviation fire and rescue and has operated on major UK airports and critical national infrastructure.
He has also delivered risk management projects and behavioural safety training for global aerospace and defence organisations.
Rick lives on the Solway Plain in north Cumbria in the UK overlooking the Lake District fells and the Solway Firth. He spent his formative years growing up in Southern Africa.
His upbringing developed in him a real ‘blinkers off’ understanding and appreciation of people, diverse cultures and a deep passion for Africa, the outdoors, and adventure. This has been the driving force throughout his life and career to date. He actively embraces opportunities to develop as a leader whenever they have arisen.
Rick volunteers as the operations officer for the UK charity Veterans for Wildlife. They support conservation efforts worldwide by working to repurpose the skills of volunteer veterans of the military, and emergency services. They support anti-poaching operations and the wider conservation of endangered species such as elephants and rhinos in southern Africa and forest elephants and pangolins in Cameroon.
Rick is also a mental health first aider and is currently training in ‘Trauma Incident Reduction’, ‘Critical Incident Risk Assessment’, and ‘CRISIS Schema’ (Critical Incident Stress Integration and Support) practice.
He endeavours to be an inspirational leader and prides himself on being calm under pressure. He is people focused and uses his skills and experience in developing and coaching teams and individuals to achieve their potential.
Rick passionately believes that a leader should be visible smart, compassionate, and committed to affect real change regardless of the scale of challenges faced.
