Richard began his career in the field of blindness and visual impairments in 1976, following his graduation from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville with a Master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. He worked for the state rehabilitation agency in Mississippi for three years, serving as a program evaluator, residential program administrator, and state consultant for individuals with deaf-blindness. In August 1979, Richard enrolled in the Ph.D. program in special education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. In addition to his doctoral studies, he served for two years (1982-1984) as Director of the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center for the Blind, then located in Nashville. Following graduation from Peabody College in 1985, he completed a year of post-doctoral study at Peabody in gerontology and then began working at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Rehabilitation Research and Development Center on Aging and Disability, located in Atlanta. During his tenure at the VA Center, he conducted investigations of electronic aids for mobility, outcomes measurement in rehabilitation, and spatial orientation and wayfinding.

In the spring of 1995, Richard began work as an O&M specialist for the Clayton County, GA. School system. He taught O&M in Clayton County for three years before joining the Department of Blind Rehabilitation at Western Michigan University as the principal research associate. He moved to a teaching faculty position in 2002.

Richard has authored or co-authored three book chapters and thirteen refereed publications. He is the princiapl investigator on a 4 million dollar, five-year grant from the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, to conduct research on blind pedestrians' access to complex intersections. Richard has served as principal investigator on numerous federal research grants, and he has extensive experience as a consultant to rehabilitation agencies and education programs, and most recently, with the US Department of Transportation. In addition, he has served the field of blindness and visual impairments through his participation in various professional organizations, and he was recently named JVIB's Reviewer of the Year. His current research interests focus in the interaction between environmental design and mobility behavior at complex intersections, and in evaluating technologies for mobility of individuals with blindness and visual impairments.