Lecturer in Business Administration Hoover 116 562.907.5086 richiho@whittier.edu
B.B.A. University of Notre Dame M.B.T. University of Southern California J.D. Loyola Law School
After graduating from Loyola Law School and passing the California Bar Exam, Rik began his professional career with the Certified Public Accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand (current day PricewaterhouseCoopers). Rik departed Coopers as a Senior Tax Manager having founded and managed the firm’s first “forensic accounting” practice.
Rik then began his law practice at the Pasadena, California firm of Hahn & Hahn where he practiced as the firm’s tax specialist in addition to the areas of real estate, corporate and transactional business. He was involved in representing the developers of the historically preserved “Old Town” Pasadena shopping, dining, and entertainment area.
It was this client, Grand American, Inc. a specialist in re-development of “historical preservation” designated real estate where Rik accepted his first corporate position as General Counsel and VP Finance. This privately owned conglomerate also owned three separate restaurant chains and a nationally distributed college campus newspaper in which Rik sat on executive councils. At the end of his tenure Rik was the President of the restaurant operations, Grand American Fare, Inc.
Rik then accepted the Corporate Counsel position at American Golf Corporation (“AGC”, the largest golf course management company). AGC’s sister affiliate, National Golf Properties is a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust, regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Legal requirements regarding “Chinese Wall” confidentiality requirements between the privately held operating company and the public REIT were absolute priorities for Rik’s department which oversaw transactional negotiations, regulatory compliance, and outside claims and litigation. Rik also assumed Treasurer responsibilities for risk management and the annual placement of specialized insurance coverages with Lloyds of London.
Upon the Goldman Sachs acquisition of AGC, Rik began his own financial company, CR Financial, LLC. which operated a chain of Payday Advance stores in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. Over the succeeding years, Rik ventured into a variety of additional small businesses (car wash, laundromat, food truck, vending machines, restaurant) to provide him flexibility in his schedule while raising two teenage daughters.
Upon his daughters’ matriculation into college, he himself began to teach accounting, business ethics, and business law at Utah Tech University. After several years of part-time teaching, Rik accepted his current Lecturer position with Whittier College in 2017-18 term. He is the primary instructor for Managerial Accounting, Tax Accounting, and the VITA tax preparation internship. He also teaches a Small Business Operations and Management course each academic year. Other courses taught by Rik during his tenure are Financial Accounting, Business Law and the Business & Society courses. He also developed two additional courses Personal Financial Literacy and Freedom of Innovation. Rik has been key in developing and administering an “accounting pathway” for Whittier students to enter accounting graduate school to qualify for the Certified Public Accountants Exam.
