Rick Hofstetter

Richard R. (“Rick”) Hofstetter showed unusual talent as a swimmer in the 1970’s and left his native Pittsburgh to accept an athletic scholarship at Indiana University (Bloomington), where he trained with the legendary coach James (“Doc”) Counsilman, and became a national champion. Rick soon moved on to academic pursuits, earning his BA in History, MA in Political Science (both from IU) and a Juris Doctorate from Duke Law School.

Rick enjoyed a successful career as a business lawyer and commercial arbitrator in Indianapolis, where he raised four children and developed a passion for German-American history and old architecture. Among his accomplishments, Rick saved the iconic Athenaeum building from a probable demolition in1991, and served as the first President of the Athenaeum Foundation in 1991-4. He and a close friend, Frank Mueller, bought the entire 19th century town of Story, Indiana, in 1999, and undertook the massive effort of bringing its architectural treasures back from the brink while developing Indiana’s best-known destination B&B, the Story Inn. www.storyinn.com.

In addition to these activities, Rick has been an adjunct member of the faculty at the Andre B. Lacy School of Business Administration at Butler University (Indianapolis) since 2002. At Butler, he has taught business law classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Although Rick continues to maintain an active law license, his deafness, which became acute after his 50th birthday, prevents him from doing much client work. He has overcome his handicap in the classroom by taking questions from his students by text.

By his own admission, Rick is a curmudgeon and a cynic, and his satirical and iconoclastic writing style is much in evidence in his recent book, “Kentuckiana Roads: A Freidenker’s Story of Life in America’s Flyover Middle” (Algora, 2017). Rick spends most of his time these days reading or sipping wine with age appropriate male friends, always in the company of his German Shepherd-Husky mix named “Snow”.