Rich is a fully retired business leader who, since moving to Burke County in 1993 has served on the boards of many non-profits and engaged in community concerns ranging in a variety of missions from economic development to homelessness to end of life care. He completed a forty-five-year career in the corrugated packaging industry with Packaging Corporation of America in Morganton in the areas of Personnel Administration, Sales and Sales Management and General Management.

He has come to consider Burke County his home and appreciates the opportunities, the people, the natural beauty and community pride he has found here.