Rich is a graduate of the US Naval Academy (1975) and a former Navy SEAL (1975 - 1980). He is the author of The Screenwriting Life (a journalistic look at the politics and nature of screenwriting published by Berkley Boulevard Books). During the 1980s, Rich was a technical writer on government projects (which included work on a two-year NASA project concerning materials processing in space and a two-year Naval Electronics Systems Engineering Activity project concerning special warfare communications equipment).
Not long after arriving in Hollywood, he attended and completed three years in the UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting. During that time, he resurrected and became the editor of Fade In (the UCLA Writers Bloc Newsletter for the students in the Masters Program in Screenwriting). It was his seven years of feature articles in Fade In that led to his book deal. Later, he became a senior staff writer for Scr(i)pt magazine where he continued his journalistic look at politics and writing in Hollywood. There, he penned two popular series of articles. The first was entitled "Structure Wars." Each article was an interview with two leading screenwriting gurus who had contrasting points of view on structure. His other most popular series of articles was on development: feature development at a major studio, feature development at a mini major studio, and television development at a major studio.
Presently, he is a consulting writer to a communications company and is forming a production company, an offshoot of Gunmetal Group
