Richard Hood Creative

Find me here:
LinkedIn
Soundcloud
YouTube
richardhoodcreative at gmail dot com

Recently retired, living in Amherst, MA, with my wife Carroll, music is a passion.
Twenty years in the boat business, then in 2000 I took a "left turn" into graphic design and web development, more here on why: alltheways.website.
Proud father of Helen and Stedman.

Bio:

Web developer since 2000, freelance 2000-2010, at Common Media 2011-2025. Partner in Yacht Insiders Guide since 2009.

On the organizing team of NERD Summit and New England Drupal Camp.

Member of Amherst, MA School Committee 2010-2016. Amherst Education Foundation board member 2016-2022. Amherst Media board member 2011-2019.

In the boatbuilding and service business 1979-1999. President & COO Hood Enterprises, Portsmouth, RI, 1991-1999 (sold to Hinckley 1999).

Grew up in Marblehead, MA, sailing a lot, particularly with my dad Ted Hood, including the 1977 America's Cup trials.

Most recent talk ALL THE WAYS! [to build a website] (most recently given at Jamstack Boston in April 2022).

A talk on Music (and sound) Theory 101 (PDF, working on slides TBA).

Education:

MIT, MS, 1981
Brown Univerity, BS, 1979
Marblehead High School, 1975

News:

2025-03-24
OK looks like I am finally retiring on April 18. Looking forward to waking up and having more or less nothing to do except music.

2024-07-01
I decided I'm not quite ready to retire yet, so will continue working part time for a while.
At the moment, NERD Summit 2025 is off, as no one stepped up to take my place as lead. Bit of a shame, but so it goes.
Excited to be heading to Berlin in August for the Rachel K Collier "Knobtwisters" (Patreon group) meetup at Ableton HQ.
Piano practice is still going well. I like to say "repetition is magic", but man, it takes hours and hours.

2024-03-22
Our cat Lovey died today (15 years old). Sad.
NERD Summit 2024 wrapped up two weeks ago.
Definite plans to retire now in August 2024. Can't wait to be spending most of my time on music. Piano practice is going well.

2023-12-31
Headed into 2024, working quite a bit on NERD Summit 2024, looking forward to it, March 8-9, 2024.
Also stepping up piano practice by following a strict intermediate track on Piano with Jonny. Will get back to composing at some point, but want to get better at keyboard first. Shout out to Oliver Prehn whose YouTube channel got me motivated to get back into piano and Jazz.
Day job continues to be working at Common Media on Drupal websites, though down to 3.5 days/week now, which is fine, as I ramp down to possible retirement in 2025.
In retirement I plan to do music 70% of the time, while staying involved with conference work and Yacht Insiders Guide work the other 30%.