Richard Barlow Adams, author of The Parting: A Story of West Point on the Eve of the Civil War. 

Rich Adams received his appointment to join the West Point Class of 1967 from Texas congressman, Homer Thornberry, and he is the first of three brothers to graduate from West Point. Six months after graduation, he deployed to Vietnam as an artillery forward observer for D Company, 1/506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (of WWII "Band of Brothers" fame). Upon returning to the States, he became an army aviator and transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers. After seven years in the military, he and his family returned to Austin, Texas, where he began a career as a consulting civil/environmental engineer. Eventually moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he formed, grew, and later sold an environmental engineering company. Since then, he has consulted as a sole practitioner, while pursuing a second career in writing. When not writing or consulting, he enjoys lecturing, traveling the world, golf, hiking, biking, and snowshoeing. During the winter season, he is a ski instructor for Beaver Creek Ski School in the Vail Valley.

Adams has been active in West Point alumni affairs and the many activities of his class, and has served as adjunct assistant professor to West Point's Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, and as adjunct professor to the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Southern Methodist University. He and his wife reside part of the year in Sandestin, Florida, and part of the year in Denver, Colorado. They have two married children and three grandchildren and are active members of the United Methodist Church. 

Rich Adams as a cadet.