Richard Bangs Biography
Richard Bangs is a travel author and television personality from the United States. He is the host and executive producer of a series of specials on American Public Television.
Richard Bangs Age
He was born Richard Johnston Bangs on August 24, 1950, in New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America. Bangs is 73 years old as of August 2023.
Richard Bangs Education
Bangs attended Northwestern University (B.A., 1972) and later joined the University of Southern California for an M.A., in 1975.
Richard Bangs Family- Parents
Rich was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America, the son of Lawrence Cutler and Louise Bangs.
Richard Bangs Career
Bangs and a group of buddies devised a plan to race wild rivers in Ethiopia. He and his crew successfully navigated Ethiopia’s Awash River in February 1973. At that point, his identity as a river guide was cemented. Bangs and his poor companions reasoned that by bringing clients along, they could fund a return trip or two. (established with John Yost) was born, named in honor of the Egyptian crocodile god who may have saved their lives during those early first descents. Sobek evolved into a river-running exploration firm, through which Bangs and his colleagues recorded 35 first descents. In 1991, Sobek Expeditions combined with Mountain Travel to form Mountain Travel Sobek. Bangs was Outward Bound’s president from 2001 to 2002.
Bangs was the founder and editor-in-chief of Mungo Park, a forerunner in Microsoft travel publishing. He also established www.terra-quest.com. He was a founding executive team member of Expedia.com and its editor-at-large. He founded and was the publisher of Expedia Travels Magazine, as well as the executive producer of Expedia Radio and the founder and executive director of Expedia Cafes. He developed Slate’s Well Travelled section (Dispatches From The Front Lines of Travel) and was the founding editor and executive producer of MSNBC.com’s Great Escapes. He also ran and developed MSN’s First and Best and, in 2005, founded and led Yahoo! News’ Richard Bangs Adventures. Bangs was employed as a stuntman for the film Killing at Hell’s Gate in 1981.
River of the Red Ape was produced by Bangs in 1991. Bangs executive produced The Last Wild River Ride, a Turner Original Production about a group exploring Ethiopia’s Tekeze River, in 1997. He co-directed the IMAX film Mystery of the Nile in 2005. The film Mystery of the Nile chronicles the story of a group of explorers led by Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown who spent 114 days traveling up all 3,260 miles of the Blue Nile to become the first in history to accomplish a full descent from source to sea. Following the conclusion of the Bangs Adventures series on Yahoo! News in 2006, Bangs started Richard Adventures with Purpose, a public television series of specials. Bangs launched “Richard Bangs Quests”; a White Nile Media, Inc. production. The pilot show, Richard Bangs South America: Quest for Wonder, was carried out by KQED and American Public Television.
Richard Bangs Books- Author
Bangs’ essays and articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Slate, and The Huffington Post. Bangs has written 19 books. His book The Lost River: A Memoir of Life, Death, and the Transformation of Wild Water received both the National Outdoor Book Award for literature and the Lowell Thomas Award for best book. Adventures with Purpose earned the NATJA Best Book Award in 2007. Quest for the Sublime (2008) and Quest for the Kasbah (2009) are two recent books.
Richard Bangs’s Net Worth
Richard has an estimated net worth of 2 million dollars.
