Rich Franks works for the ECN's Hardware Systems Engineering Group as a Systems Engineer. Prior to coming to ECN, Rich was a Project Leader and Acting Manager of PC, Unix, and LAN/WAN support for BMG Direct Marketing. Rich graduated from Purdue with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering Technology.

Rich's primary responsibility is to maintain workstations and servers running Solaris and Linux Operating Systems for the College of Engineering. Site specialists often contact him when they need hardware fixes, upgrades, and/or new installations.  Rich checks the trouble queues often then works with the site specialists and software staff to solve and prevent future problems. While working at Purdue, Rich has also taught courses in Data Communications and Systems Architecture for the CPT department as an adjunct faculty member.

In his off hours, Rich likes to spend time with his wife and three sons. Rich also likes to hunt and fish, make loud noises with his guitars, chuck dice, flop cards, and play games of all sorts.