A central theme of Rick's teaching is the creation of immersive, simulation-based learning experiences that move students beyond traditional lectures and case studies. In his courses, students operate as consultants, entrepreneurs, analysts, and decision-makers inside realistic business scenarios — complete with fictional companies, clients, datasets, and evolving problems that require gathering evidence, working with ambiguity, and defending recommendations.

Rick is also exploring how artificial intelligence can expand experiential learning, including dynamic client interactions, individualized feedback, and responsive simulations, while preserving the critical thinking, judgment, and communication skills students need to build themselves.

He brings an unusually broad professional perspective to this work — decades of teaching combined with experience as an entrepreneur, consultant, designer, researcher, and technology executive, including building immersive training environments for RIT's Global Cybersecurity Institute and leading mobile forensics research at Purdue. That background shapes a teaching philosophy centered on experimentation, iteration, and learning through doing.

Rick also has deep roots at RIT: as a student, he named the university's tiger mascot “RITchie” in 1989, and decades later co-authored a children's book about RITchie with his daughters.