Richard David Bach was born in New York City and grew up on the south shore of Long Island. He acquired a Civil Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, where it was claimed that the mechanical and nuclear engineers designed weapons while his fellow civil engineers built targets. ROTC at RPI led to a commission in the Air Force and two years on active duty overseeing design and construction of anti-missile radar sites in the Arctic, after which he accidentally migrated to Portland, Oregon where he studied law at the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College. With law school and the bar exam behind him, he joined Stoel Rives, LLP, one of Portland’s most prestigious law firms, where he founded and chaired the firm’s Environmental Law Practice Group — practicing environmental law until he retired to take up writing. Richard David Bach lives and writes near Portland where he dotes upon his wife (always his first reader), four children, nine grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.