Richard Jurmain
AUTHOR

Richard Jurmain

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
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Rick Jurmain is a retired rocket scientist and entrepreneur. In the ‘90s, he and his late wife Mary (killed by cancer in 2016) built a successful corporation from the ground up. For Realityworks, Inc., they invented, built, and marketed a microprocessor-based product that gained national support, achieved international media attention, and was named by Fortune magazine as Product of the Year in 1994. In 2000 the Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Chamber of Commerce selected Rick and Mary as the local Entrepreneurs of the Year, and Ernst & Young selected them as Finalists for the Wisconsin Entrepreneur of the Year award. Mary ran the company, while Rick was Vice President In Charge Of Things That Go Beep (engineering, computers, phones, faxes, cars, dishwashers and, oddly enough, toilets, though they rarely go beep). In the ‘80s, Rick led, or was a member of, 13 NASA Space Shuttle mission control Flight Activities teams. Unlike cruise ships, Shuttle flight activities did not include shuffleboard or bingo. The Flight Activities teams planned missions starting years prior to launch, and re-planned missions during flights when things went wrong. And things always went wrong. Rick also led the Operations Analysis teams for General Dynamics’ Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) and McDonnell Douglas’ National AeroSpace Plane (NASP). He spent 15 years in the aerospace industry doing tactical analysis and war games, including top level WWIII combined arms games, and he helped invent hypersonic war games. In 2002, Rick was a consultant to Coleman Aerospace on DARPA’s RASCAL study, which designed modifications for a rocket-powered F-14 fighter. For that contract Rick headed up designing the Operations, Support, Avionics, Electrical, Instrumentation, Cockpit, Payload Interfaces, and Integrated Vehicle Health Management Systems. All the fun stuff. In the late ‘90s Rick was a founder of Vela Technology Development, Inc. Vela and its partners started much of what is becoming the space tourism industry. Vela’s briefings to Burt Rutan and Richard Branson started them on the path to space tourism. Vela worked with the FAA to write regulations for space tourism. And Vela helped design a space-tourism themed resort for Las Vegas. While Vela has since folded, Rick owns its process patent on key low-acceleration trajectories for space tourism. And if Rutan doesn’t get his butt in gear, the patent will be worthless because it expires soon. Rick was a Captain in the Army Combat Engineers, National Guard and Reserves (no significant active duty). Rick is 65 years old, currently retired, though working intermittently as a board member, inventor, and writer. He has two kids: Jake, age 31, and Ariel, age 27. And he’s obnoxiously proud of both of them. Rick is widely acknowledged to have been Mary’s trophy husband. Though no one has ever thought of him as just another pretty face. At least, no one who’s seen his face. And, come to think of it, no one has ever considered that he was a first place trophy, either. Rick was just in the right place at the right time to trip up a gorgeous, massively intelligent woman with an aging biological clock and desperately low standards. Someday someone will make a fortune building a dating site for such women.
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