Richard Phillips was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1956. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979 and qualified as an Army Ranger, going on to serve as an officer in the US Army. He earned a master’s degree in physics from Naval Postgraduate School, completing his thesis work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After working for three years as a research associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he returned to the army to complete his tour of duty. Today he lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Carol, dividing his time between developing simulation software for the US military and writing science fiction.