Born in Vancouver, Canada, Richard Arnold was already a fan of science fiction when Star Trek began airing in 1966. He attended his first convention, the 1969 WorldCon, the summer his family moved to St. Louis, MO. There he ran Star Trek fan clubs in both his high school and college, and attended some twenty conventions in the U.S. and Canada. Among those was the first all-Star Trek convention, held in New York City in January of 1972, and it was at that convention that he first met Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry, a man who would later greatly influence his life.
In 1974 Richard moved to Los Angeles, California, where he got to know Susan Sackett, Gene Roddenberry's newly-hired assistant and a fellow Star Trek fan. Due to his good working knowledge of the Star Trek universe, he soon found himself involved as a volunteer consultant to Roddenberry's office, and in 1986, after nearly ten years of being Paramount's 'resident Trekkie', he was hired by the studio (at Roddenberry's insistence!) and became the studio's official Star Trek Consultant. This was in time to work on the show's twentieth anniversary, the promotion of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and the early development of Star Trek: The Next Generation He also began attending some twenty to twenty-five conventions a year, becoming, in the minds of many, an ambassador for Star Trek. Richard remained in this position until shortly after Roddenberry's death. Richard now deals in Star Trek trading cards (a sideline that grew out of writing copy for the manufacturers and helping them design new sets.)