Richard Bevan lives on Decatur Island in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound. His interests include cooking, sailing, hiking, tennis, writing, travel, reading, and gardening; and time with his family. In 2010, he managed to combine more than half of these pursuits in a sailing trip across the Atlantic Ocean from St. Lucia to the Azores. He was responsible for provisioning and cooking on the voyage, and for a daily blog. His first book

The Galley Slave's Handbook (2010) was based on that experience, with a blend of stories, food lists, provisioning guidance, and commentary on the challenges of cooking at sea.

Richard now focuses on writing and publishing through ChangeStart Press, including (as well as GSH) two books about the management of change: Changemaking (2011) and The Changemaking Checklists (2015). These draw on many years advising assisting organizations deal  with major change. He has also published two books for children in the 4 to 8 age range, The Hidden Triceratops (2019) and The Tangled Pteranodon (2020) based on stories told to (and created with) his own kids. As well as his own books, he assists and guides other writers through the publishing process.

A graduate of Oxford University and Manchester Business School. Richard's early experience was in manufacturing management, first with Hawker Siddeley Aviation and then with Lever Brothers. These assignments enabled him to observe and experience at first hand how organizational performance depends on the way that people are respected, engaged, led and rewarded. He started his own firm in 1995. For several years he was also an external faculty member at the University of Washington where he developed and taught a course on managing change for the Executive MBA program. The methodologies, tools and resources that he  developed, applied and tested as a leader, consultant and educator provided the framework for the Changemaking books.

A second edition of Changemaking, combining and updating core content from the two earlier books, will be published in the fall of 2024.