Rich started his active involvement with MPBN answering telephones and taking pledge calls sometime in the mid-1970s. In 1978 he started producing a jazz show as a volunteer.

Rich traces his love of jazz to 1955 when he saw the Jack Webb movie, Pete Kelly's Blues, and, an impressionable young Bangor kid, was immediately captivated by the score. Actually, his life somehow hasn't been the same since, and he hopes his listeners share the same passion.