Richard E. Duffy

Rick Duffy grew up in Chicago. He attended college at the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating with a degree in engineering. After graduation he served as an army officer, with tours of duty in Korea and the U.S. He resigned from the army with the rank of Captain after five years of service.

Next, Mr. Duffy went to law school at Georgetown, graduating with his Juris Doctor degree. While in law school he got involved with a small company (called BAR/BRI) that was training law students to pass their state bar exams. After graduation, he moved back to Chicago to work for the founder of the company. This company has grown into the Harcourt Professional Education Group, which provides a wide variety of educational products to legal, accounting and tax professionals, and Mr. Duffy is its President and Chief Operating Officer.

Mr. Duffy, who is also a CPA, developed a nationwide CPA review course, Conviser Duffy, which a large number of UIC accounting majors have taken. Harcourt sold this course in 1999, and it is now the Becker Conviser course. Mr. Duffy is a consultant to, and the main lecturer in, that program. His current focus at Harcourt Professional Education is to expand their distance learning businesses.