Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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author
Rick Lacey
Rick spent eight years in the belly of the beast working at BP's corporate headquarters in various increasingly responsible positions until his involuntary separation during a corporate downsizing....view moreRick spent eight years in the belly of the beast working at BP's corporate headquarters in various increasingly responsible positions until his involuntary separation during a corporate downsizing. He knows where the bodies are buried and is uniquely qualified to tell the story and expose the ugly truth about BP.The less relevant bio information about Rick is detailed below for those who enjoy getting to know their author.Rick’s philosophy of life was set when his father's early death brought the revelation that men in his family die young. That sent him off to cram a lifetime into too few years. Instead, he’s enjoyed a long life, pursued several careers, and accumulated multiple lifetimes of experience. When he sits down to write, he draws on a wealth of real-life events and interactions.He was born in Pennsylvania and spent his first years in an Allegheny-mountain coal town. The family escaped to San Francisco before settling in a suburb of Cleveland where Rick benefited from a middle-class upbringing and old-fashioned family values. He earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Cleveland State University.He worked twelve years at the Lincoln Electric Company in the infamous Lincoln Incentive System. He spent eight years at BP America where he worked his way up to Senior Financial Analyst. After accepting a buyout during a corporate downsizing, he relocated to Florida and speculated in real estate before rejoining the workforce as Controller of the Sundial Beach & Golf Resort and the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club. In an effort to give back, he finished his working career as a Financial Adviser and Accountant for Love A Child, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to housing, clothing, and educating poor children.Rick spent two years in an RV visiting every state and traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer. While there are still a lot of countries on his bucket list, he continues to check them off.Intertwined in that life he invested in the financial markets, traded bond futures and index options, and counted cards at Blackjack tables. He was the fool who acts as his own lawyer, even winning a case in Ohio's Court of Appeals and beating the IRS in tax court. He climbed mountains and glaciers and explored deserts, caves, and rain forests. He rode in a hot air balloon, bungee jumped, hang glided, shot the rapids, skied, sky dived, and scuba dived. He dined in exclusive restaurants and dirt-floor cantinas. He worked on a shrimp boat and witnessed a murder. He slept in the fanciest hotels and camped under the stars. He got into bar fights, was pepper sprayed, and spent nights in jail. He met up with rattlesnake and grizzly bear, ran from a moose, and spent a night against a redwood in big-foot country. He admired nature's wonders from her most beautiful creations to her most savage devastation. He enjoyed desert sex and Arctic Circle sex, palace sex and trailer-park sex. He soaked in desert hot springs and swam in mountain lakes. He went to Roswell and Area 51 and watched a Space Shuttle blast off. He waded the Rio Grande and cruised Prince William Sound. He hitchhiked across the country and flew across oceans. He caught King Salmon and watched Humpback whales. He was chased by Indian braves and panhandled by Indian alcoholics. He hit a golf ball further than Tiger Woods and saw more of America than John Muir.As important as education, career, and travel are to a novelist’s arsenal are interactions with people. Rick's been privileged to meet some incredible characters and to have loved and lost. From the murderer to the philanthropist, the Nobel scholar to the Hopi elder, billionaire to bag lady, executive to limo driver, Aztec stud to Korean lesbian, librarian to stripper, rock star to groupie, laid-back Jamaican to proper English Lord, politician to priest, whore to nun, lunatic boss to perfectionist golf pro, the cowboy just wanting a bourbon and a hot meal to the Chairman of the Board bent on ruling the world he learned something from them all.Though hardly the sort of life of which biographies are demanded, it is the best preparation for a novelist to bring realism to his stories. He paraphrase a great many of our most admired authors, . . . "I lived it, I write it."view less