Richard Carline was raised on a houseboat in the Louisiana swamps. His family moved to town when he was 10 or 11 years old, and he later moved with his mother to Houston. After finishing high school, he spent three years in the Army and then returned to Morgan City and started working on the Rip Tide, servicing Texaco rigs off the coast of Louisiana. He learned how to navigate and became a deckhand. Then he worked his way up to earn his 100 Ton then 300 Ton and then 1600 Ton licenses. He has worked in and out of the office since 1968, returning to the boats whenever he tired of being in the office. Among his responsibilities, Richard delivered vessels around the world, helped develop training courses, served as operations manager, and oversaw new construction. He worked in the Gulf of Mexico, Nigeria, Angola, and the North Sea.