Rick has been a student of industrial relations since entering university in 1980. He joined United Technologies Corporation at Pratt & Whitney in 1984 as a Personnel Trainee. Over the next 35 years, he held increasingly responsible positions in the worlds of both the Human Resources “generalist” and the industrial relations specialist. He spent the last nine years of his corporate career understudying for and then leading the corporation’s global employee and labor relations function.

Rick is passionate about industrial relations. He led the employee and labor relations functions at Carrier and Pratt & Whitney for a combined seven years. In those positions, Rick was chief spokesman for the renewal of dozens of negotiations in the U.S. and as many in the face of restructuring actions. Beginning with those assignments and through the rest of his career, he directed hundreds of negotiations virtually and from “back rooms” around the world. In these roles, Rick partnered closely with line leaders on strategic business matters and led teams though the execution of related labor relations priorities.

Rick has managed industrial relations issues on the ground in more than 20 countries across the global spectrum of representative and regulatory environments, directing wage and contract negotiations, large scale restructuring programs, global policy deployment, and the company’s response to organizing activity and collective action.

Rick retired from United Technologies in the fall of 2019 but remains active in the field. He has kept up a years-long tradition of lectures at Cornell, engages selectively in “labor” consulting, and continues to support HR Policy Global’s development activities as Special Advisor, Global Labor Relations. Rick holds a B.S. in Industrial & Labor Relations from Cornell University and an M.A. in Management from Webster University.