Richard was appointed by President Reagan as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Agriculture in 1981. As a senior member of the Secretary’s management team he over saw an agency with a workforce of over 117,000 and prepared the Department’s annual budget. He also served as the US government’s chief trade negotiator for agricultural and food issues during bi-lateral trade talks with the Government of Japan and during the summer of 1982, served as the Acting Deputy Secretary of Agriculture.

Prior to Government service, Douglas worked for John Hancock’s Agricultural Investment Department. There he designed a new investment portfolio called ACRE (Agricultural Capital & Real Estate) for the company. In 1979 he was promoted to an Investment Officer and named Portfolio Manger. His duties included, raising capital for investments from pension funds, analysis of investment opportunities for the fund, making investments, supervising field force, preparing quarterly and annual reports for the Board of Directors of John Hancock and ACRE investors.

Douglas joined Sun Diamond Growers of California as Vice-President for Public Relations during the fall of 1983. In 1988 he promoted to Senior Vice-President for Corporate Affairs where he had direct line responsibilities for government affairs at the local, state and federal levels, corporate communications, public relations, strategic planning for international markets, consumer and nutritional affairs.

Douglas a graduate of Howard University earned his Masters and PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Maryland. He has served as a member of the President’s Export Council, the Board of Trustees of Howard University, the Board of Overseers of Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, the California Economic Strategies Commission and Chiarman of the White House Fellows Western Region Selection Panel. He currently serves as Board member of The Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation, The Greg Anthony Foundation and Tuskegee Food and Nutritional Sciences Advisory Board.