“I am my father’s son,” says Rick Preston, explaining his habit of punctuality. The son of Bob Preston and the late Dorothea Preston, long time head greeters at Unity, Rick is not only one of the café openers on Sundays but also volunteers three days a week and Service Saturdays, working inside and outside the building. Rick shares that his father, who lives next door to him, is always ready to leave long before a scheduled meeting time, wherever the destination.
Born in Warren, OH, Rick was 5 when he moved here with his parents and older brother. From his enrollment at Skycrest Elementary School to his graduation from Georgetown University, his formal education is a kaleidoscope of changing interests and experiences. He remembers widespread chuckles when he received his diploma at Dunedin High School. In 4th grade, he had perfect attendance, earning all A’s; in 5th grade, he was told he could expect to make the top 10 FBI most wanted list.
Career advancement and higher education followed a similar pattern, a collage of successes and setbacks. Rick originally wanted to be a pilot and passed the Air Force physical and qualifying tests, but too many traffic tickets quashed that dream. He worked his way through St. Petersburg College and graduated with honors. A chemical engineering major at the University of South Florida, he earned straight A’s the first quarter, but in his 7th consecutive school term, he dropped all classes. He participated in the DuPont co op student chemical engineering program and worked at a mine in Starke. Here, he started seeing the “ugly side of business.” In 1981, he graduated from USF with a B.A. in natural sciences but decided to become a dentist and was accepted at Georgetown University where he received his DDS in 1986. He practiced in Richmond and moved to Ohio in 2006. Married in 1985, Rick became a father; his son, 28, is an industrial engineer in North Carolina.
In 2011, Rick came to Tampa and helped to care for his mother, in declining health. Then, and always, “ Leddy was there for my family,” he says, recalling his first time at UCC for his brother’s wedding. In 2012, he visited David in Thailand and also journeyed to Malaysia and Singapore.
Some of Rick’s hobbies are cooking, home improvement and computers. He has developed considerable culinary talents, likes working with his hands, ceramic tiled his kitchen, constructed glass blocks on both sides of the house, remodeled a bathroom and built three computers.
In summary, Rick says, “If you learn by making mistakes, I either started at the very bottom or have been learning my whole life. What I’m doing now is searching for more spiritual growth, and this is the place for that. Unity is very open, accepting of all paths, the only way to try to get through this life with as few scars as possible.”