Ron was born in southern Illinois, in 1949. He has a bachelor's from the University of Chicago. In the 1970s Ron made animated films for children's television programs and two longer films, Hank the Cave Peanut and Captain Silas, which are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Captain Silas received the gold medal for animation at the Virgin Islands Film Festival.After filmmaking, Ron worked as a teacher and camp director, in outdoor and Montessori settings. He did multimedia instructional design for educational publishing at D.C. Heath and CAST, and authored guidebooks to principal rivers in eastern Massachusetts. Ron served for ten years as Executive Director of Sudbury Valley Trustees, a regional conservation non-profit.Ron published his first novel, Ike, in 2015, and his second, The Grove of Hollow Trees, in 2020. Since becoming a grandfather, Ron has written and illustrated several books for children.