Richard Berg

Rick Berg graduated college in 1972, then spent the next 6 years traveling around the world. He was a diver and journalist in Costa Rica, climbed in the Himalayas and Andes, and hitchhiked across the Sahara. He was the sixth person to do a solo canoe descent of the Amazon. He then returned to the U. S. to get a Ph.D. in economics from UC-Berkeley, but mostly to climb rocks in Yosemite. After that he spent 5 years at UC-Santa Cruz, twice being nominated as its outstanding teacher. But once again adventure called, so he built a sailboat and spent 9 years sailing it around the Pacific and Indian Oceans, stopping to teach economics at universities in New Zealand and Macau, but mostly windsurfing, diving, and climbing coconut trees. In 1995 he sold the boat and moved to New Mexico, where he started a successful software development company, DataWizards, specializing in database design for both web and desktop, and the creation of custom Excel spreadsheets.

Clients include the Albuquerque police and fire departments, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and many private corporations. Most recently, he has been writing software in the Kingdom of Bhutan.

In addition, Rick satisfies his love of teaching by giving classes at the University of New Mexico Department of Continuing Education.