Rich has been a social studies teacher for twenty four years. He is currently teaching at Rocky Point High School where he is active in creating assemblies on 9/11, Veterans Day, and the Holocaust. He teaches all on-line and on-site courses on the different aspects of global, American, Long Island and New York State history, social concerns, respect, family issues, violence in our society, and race/ethnic issues in our nation. Rich has been recognized as the 2008 Teacher of the Year by the North Shore Times Beacon Record, North Shore Sun and the 2008/2021 Veterans of Foreign Wars, 9-12 for New York State Teacher of the Year, and was the Hometown Hero for all of Long Island for the Jones Beach Air Show in 2023. He has five military history articles published in the Long Island Historical Journal, is an advocate for veterans affairs, writes history/film reviews, political, social, athletic, and educational stories for his local town paper. Rich has conducted massive research on General George S. Patton in the Modern Military Archives in College Park, Maryland and at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 2009, he completed his second masters degree through Norwich University on military history studies. Rich is his school's varsity club advisor, coached wrestling, baseball, cross country,and was a senior class advisor. This educator served in the Army Reserves/Air National Guard for nine years as a staff sergeant. As a younger teacher, Rich had an internship at a juvenile detention center for troubled youth. For the last fourteen years, this teacher is also an adjunct professor at a local community college where he has taught Early and Modern American History classes. Over the last fifteen years, he has worked with his former service members to organize one of the largest Wounded Warrior Golf Outings in the Tri-State area. These efforts have collected over $250,000 for our local veterans that are wounded during the War on Terror. Rich has also been busy writing a book on the military life of General Ulysses S. Grant, where he has conducted research at Princeton, Columbia, US Military Academy at West Point, Stony Brook University and the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently he was the Newsday Hometown Hero for Long Island and was again the New York State VFW Teacher of the Year for Citizenship and Service. On December 7th, 2023, he opened the VFW 6249 Suffolk County World War II & Military History Museum as the curator that is located in Rocky Point, New York. He has been a proud instructor for the New York Center for Teacher Development since 2005 and enjoys teaching course professional development with educational peers from many different communities and school districts.
