Richard (Rick) James Foch was born on March 20, 1957, in Winter Haven, Florida. His love for airplanes began at the age of 3, when his father, James Donald Foch, let Rick sit in the cockpit of a T-37 jet trainer at Bartow Air Force Base's Armed Forces Day. In 1961, he moved with his family to Titusville, Florida, where his father worked at Cape Canaveral on the Mercury and Gemini projects in the early space program, as an electronics technician. Rick graduated from Astronaut High School in 1975, and became interested in building and designing model airplanes, so he became a member of the Moonport Modelers Radio Control model airplane club in Titusville. He went to college at the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) from 1975 to 1979, where he studied mechanical engineering. During his college years he got his private pilot's license from Arthur Dunn Air Park in Titusville (December, 1976), and also learned to fly aerobatics in a Citabria. At FIT he had the opportunity to design airplanes that could fly on Mars someday. He also helped his college sweetheart (and future wife), Debbie, to obtain her private pilot's license at the same place in December, 1978, by working there to pay for her lessons. He graduated in 1979 with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, got married, and moved to Maryland. He earned his master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland in 1985.

Rick was employed by the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC for 33 years as an aerospace engineer, attaining the position of Senior Scientist for Expendable Vehicles. He was presented with the Navy Distinguished Civil Service Award for extraordinary service and technical leadership resulting in a profound evolution of small military significant unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). He also loved working on several designs for UAVs that could fly on Mars and Saturn's moon, Titan. He was an accomplished airplane designer and he loved to design and fly model airplanes. He wanted to design a home built airplane that would never stall, as his wife requested, to make her feel more comfortable with flying again someday.

Richard Foch passed away on Monday, April 14, 2014, at the age of 57, from cancer. He was married to Deborah Foch for almost 35 years and together they had 3 children (Laura, Adam, and Heather) and 2 grandchildren (Serena and Asierah).