When he graduated from college in 1960, he went on to the army. When Richard graduated he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army. He was in the army for about eight years. While in the army he got married and had two sons. He was an army officer in the Vietnam War. He received an honorable discharge from the army and a Bronze Star Medal.
After he returned from the war he was the first black person to work as a stock broker in the Baltimore office of Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith, a Fortune 500 company. He was the first black person to serve on the appointed Carroll County school board. He was later elected by school board members to be the first black person to serve as the president of the school board. In 1975 he obtained a Masters of Business Administration from Morgan State University.
Because of Richard’s love and devotion to his high school, Robert Moton, he formed an organization which honored teachers, provided yearly class reunions, and most importantly, provided college scholarships to black Carroll County high school students.
After eight years of serving on the school board, he decided to run for elected office in Carroll County. Although he lost his first election against two incumbents in the race for a state delegate seat in 1978, he did manage to become the first black person to win a primary in the county as a Democrat. In 1982 Richard was elected to be the first black delegate in Carroll County history. He served as a delegate for the county from 1982 to 1996 by winning four consecutive elections. He managed to become a power broker in Maryland’s Democratically controlled General Assembly by serving on the House Appropriations Committee. He served as the Chairman of the Joint Budget and Audit Committee and the Joint Committee on Pensions.
In the first half of the 1980s Richard became a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and Gamma Boule Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity
In 1996 Richard parlayed his thirteen years in the General Assembly and his twenty-seven years as a stock broker into a page in Maryland history, when he was elected to become Maryland’s first black state treasurer. He was the first black constitutional officer in Maryland. His position as state treasurer brought with it a seat on the powerful, three-member Board of Public Works, along with the governor and the comptroller.
Richard served as treasurer for six years from 1996 to 2002. In January 2002 Richard retired from the State Treasurer’s Office for health reasons.
While he was state treasurer he had two buildings named after him and was awarded four honorary degrees from local colleges and universities.
Richard went from raising chickens and hogs in his backyard to investing billions of dollars for the state of Maryland.
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