Rick Behl has managed to work most of his professional life within view of the beach. Rick earned his Bachelors degree in Chemistry and Earth Science from UC San Diego before working in the petroleum and geothermal energy industries. He returned to school at UC Santa Cruz and completed his PhD in Earth Sciences in 1992 on the diagenesis and deformation of chert in the Miocene Monterey Formation of California and the deep Pacific Ocean. Rick then went to UC Santa Barbara as a post-doctoral fellow at the Marine Science Institute where he discovered important global connections between climatic and oceanographic change during the past 100,000 years. Since 1995, Rick has been a professor of Geological Sciences at Cal State Long Beach, where he continues his research on the Quaternary through Miocene tectonic and environmental history of the California Margin. Rick is widely published (Nature, Science, Geology, USGS Bulletin, GSA and AGU Special Publications), has participated in several expeditions of the Ocean Drilling Program and other international coring programs, and led numerous field trips for professional organizations, petroleum companies, and international conferences. Rick is a founding member of the Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environment, and Society at CSULB, an analytical and research consortium of geologists, archaeologists, and biologists at CSULB. Rick was a 2003-2004 AAPG Distinguished Lecturer, and was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award at CSU Long Beach, where he teaches classes in Oceanography, Earth Systems and Global Change, Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, Sedimentary Petrology, Petroleum Geology, and Field Geology. Rick and his wife, Krisztina Mako, are residents of Laguna Beach, California, where they are involved in developing geologic interpretive material for Crystal Cove State Park and the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.