Edward Richter has a rich history with the Los Altos Academy of Engineering (LAAE). He had strong influences from his parents about Engineering. Richter’s mother was the vice-principal of Los Altos High School and was very actively involved with the Engineering program. His father was an engineer and served on the Advisory Committee of the Academy. In 1993, his parents went with LAAE to the Arizona Public Service Company’s Solar and Electric 500, the very first electric vehicle race the Academy competed in. It was from this race that sparked Richter’s interest. However, it wasn’t until the year of 2004 that he became associated with LAAE.

Richter came into the program as the mentor for the Botball team and has supervised the Botball team to championships numerous times. Now, he oversees the Robotics program at LAAE. Aside from being the mentor of the Botball team, Richter has also taught Introduction to Robotics and Advanced Computer Science. Recently, he became involved with the Academy’s autonomous vehicle project as the lead advisor. Richter has been with the LAAE for a few years now and has always been a great help. After the retirement of Robert Franz, Richter plans to take over the program as the leading prominent figure of LAAE.

Richter graduated from Los Altos High School in the summer of 1992. After graduation, he moved on to work on his Bachelor’s degree mostly at Mount San Antonio College and American University in Washington, D.C. After years of work, he obtained his Bachelor’s degree from American University. After he obtained his Bachelor’s degree, Richter moved on to obtaining his Master’s degree. He then attended California State University, Los Angeles and obtained his Special Education and Industrial Technologies teaching credentials. Along with his teaching credentials, Richter would also later obtain his Master’s degree from California State University, Los Angeles. Such accomplishments were the prelude to his leadership role in LAAE.

After graduating from California State University, Los Angeles, Richter began work in advertising and public relations. The agency in which he worked specialized in extreme sports. Richter became very familiar with Vans and G-Shock from working in his public relations agency.

After working in public relations, Richter decided to go into teaching. In 2002, he obtained his first substitute teacher job. In the fall of 2002, he got his first full time job as a teacher at Los Altos High School, teaching Special Education until 2004. Since then, Richter has moved on to teaching Advanced Computer Science and Introduction to Robotics at Los Altos High School. In fact, it was Mr. Richter that started the Introduction to Robotics class. Since then, Richter has been very successful in LAAE and plans to help the program prosper even more.

Contact e-mail: erichter@hlpusd.k12.ca.us