He came to Los Angeles in 1965 to study architecture at USC, then earned an MA in Art History at UCLA. His first job was at the old Getty Museum in Malibu. After teaching at Cal State, Domingues Hills, he migrated to Monterey and was drawn into the Gentrain program in 1974 replacing Bob Nelson for a semester. He returned full-time in 1978.

"Those days were chaotic," Rick says. "We were always just one day ahead of the class lesson. When the program started there were about 25 students, and by the end of the first semester we had 65!" The object of the program, according to Phil Nash who was instrumental in getting the humanities grant, was to satisfy all the course requirements in the humanities, in a flexible program.

"It happened that only about 5 to 10% of MPC students came directly from high school, and most of our students were retired people," Rick said.

"According to the humanities grant, Gentrain had to be self-sustaining after a couple of years. This means about eighty to a hundred registered students. The numbers have been up except for a few years in the early 90's. I continued to teach for nothing. We did classes at the Bach festival to keep going." "But," he continued,"Gentrainers are great. They're enthusiastic, and clap and maybe cheer after a lecture.

Rick is a full-time faculty member whose classes include at times: Introduction to Art, Survey of Western Art, and courses in American and Asian art and the Art of Primitive Peoples. Like all faculty members, he helps with college governance - as budget manager for the Art Department.

His own art collection, he says, is eclectic. He has posters, blown glass, sculptures, Frank Lloyd Wright artifacts, and a 2,000 art book collection.

Working with Kent Seavey, he leads bus tours of the area, high-lighting architecture, principally Wright's. He and Kent are collaborating on a major exhibition at the Monterey Museum of Art in the summer of 2000.

Rick loves to travel and savors the idea of spending a year in Rome. Building on his 1982 Fulbright sabbatical when he went around the world, he visits Europe annually, adding to that well-catalogued collection of 30,000 slides that provide Gentrainers with visual knowledge of art through the ages.

Carol Collins

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