About John Rivard

I was born and raised in small-town New England. Long walks in the woods, fishing, photography starting with a 126 Instamatic & flashcubes and helping in the kitchen with the family meals were all part of growing up. At sixteen my parents decided to move to southeastern Colorado for health reasons. I immediately loved the big skies, open horizons and distant mountains of the western prairie.

Accepted to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, I pursued a degree in extractive metallurgical engineering. My specialty would be biological extraction of uranium using bacteria. Then Three Mile Island melted down and the nuclear future in the US evaporated. I kept my interest in science and alternative forms of energy production. This period was also when I developed my sense of environmental responsibility.

One semester short of my degree I decided that I was tired of being a broke student and wanted to make money. I spent a few years working the oilfields of New Mexico and Texas. Then I got serious about one of my true loves and began a 30 year career in food service, mostly at the executive chef level and above. As much as possible I concentrated on using local, in-season and eco-friendly ingredients to create healthy and delicious dishes.

Throughout this time I always had and actively used a camera. Photography was my meditation and kept me sane when the rest of the world seemed to be going crazy.

I am an active investor. I invest in real estate, mostly single-family homes, in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. I also actively invest in the stock market, concentrating on "green" energy and technology stocks.

My on-line presence to date consists of:
Personal photography site Florida Image Tools - http://www.FloridaImageTools.com
Real Estate Investing site Creative Vision Investors - http://www.CreativeVisionInvestors.com
Real estate column for Examiner.com - http://www.examiner.com/x-38756-St-Petersburg-Real-Estate-Examiner
Occasional contributions to UselessKnowledge.com
I post photos to Flickr, Deviant Art and Eyefetch
And this blog.