Born into a ranching family in Onyx, California in 1945, Richard attended schools in Bakersfield and graduated from Bakersfield High School. He then attended California Polytechnic University where he competed in rodeos and horse shows while studying agriculture. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Ranch and Farm Management in 1967.
Richard continued learning and working in the livestock industry. He established and operated cattle ranching companies including a cow/calf outfit that was built into the tenth largest in the United States. He also ran sheep in Nevada, a feedlot in El Paso, and a meat processing plant in California.
Richard has belonged to numerous livestock organizations, including the Kern County Cattlemen’s Association Board of Directors, the California Cattlemen's Association as Co-Chairman of the Public Lands Committee, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the California Beef Council. He has served on the California Desert District Multiple Use Advisory Board of the BLM, and was elected to the BLM Section Three Advisory Board in Kern County.
He currently raises cattle in a partnership, the Onyx Mountain Cattle Company, and continues to operate Richard Rudnick Cattle Company, established in 1970 as a cattle trading company.
He serves as President of ARK, a non-profit corporation, founded in 2002 to protect open space and to demonstrate that grazing and protecting the environment can co-exist and benefit each other. Richard is also First Vice President of the Rancheros Vistadores where he is five time winner of the “Best Horseman” award.