Richard is Founder, President & CEO of Aplethora, Inc., a privately-held services firm based in Houston,Texas, since 2004. The prominent operating division within the firm is Aplethora Energy Services, which is engaged in providing technical and commercial advisory services to energy industry clients, with an emphasis on process, power and alternative fuels. Current activities focus on the utilization of gasification technology for conversion of coal, petroleum coke, and biomass to produce electrical power, heat, chemicals and transportation liquids. Waste to Energy(WTE) projects using gasification technology comprise a large component of biomass conversion initiatives currently in progress.
With over 40 years diverse experience in the energy industry, Richard has served in senior executive business development positions with major international EPC contractors, including FosterWheeler, ABB Lummus Global (now CB&I),and CH2M HILL. As such, he has participated in the project development and EPC aspects of numerous major capital projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors, representing over $30 Billion in CAPEX. Richard has also served on the Executive Boards of the Engineering Construction Contracting Association (ECC), and the Construction Industry Institute(CII). He is also recognized globally as an authority on gasification technology, and recently served as Executive Director of the Gasification Technologies Council (GTC). As a member on the Board of Advisors of the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE), Richard looks to provide support and guidance on pertinent energy industry activities involving conversion of fossil materials, biomass and WTE projects, to deliver power, heat, and other high-value energy products.
Aplethora also has a Production division with the main activities aimed at producing films, music recordings, and live music concert events. Among recent releases of note are “Lemmy” (certified "Gold" in 5 countries), “Gorging”, “Devoured”, and “Back to Back-Live”. Significant “live concerts” produced by Aplethora Productions include Bob Seeley, Mark Braun (Mr. B), Rob Rio, Axel Zwingenberger, and Silvan Zingg, internationally recognized boogie woogie and blues piano greats.
Richard is a Senior Member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Emeritus Board Chairman of the GTC, and serves on Advisory Boards of other energy industry firms. He attended Lehigh University for his BS in Mechanical Engineering, and holds an MBA from Seton Hall University.