Armenian Folkloric Dance Ensemble for seven years under the direction of Jora Makarian (he was the first non-Armenian to be invited and accepted into the group and only one of three such persons). Also of special note was Richard's effort to research, document, preserve, and present several endangered indigenous heritages, especially the Crimean Tatar minority and the Pontian Greek and Albanian (Shiptar) minority of Kosovo-Metohija and northern Macedonia.

To support himself and his activities, Richard was employed as an adult education teacher, engineering planner, production scheduler, materials buyer, and stock market analyst. These occupations, as with his other activities, also required disciplined research, thorough documentation, accurate data, interpersonal skills, and multi-tasking.

In 1971, Richard founded the KOROYAR Folklore Ensemble (the name was coined from the words kolo, horo, oyun, andbar), a unique, tightly-knit group of ten dancers that developed, presented, and perpetuated the traditional music of Southeast Europe and the Near East. This music has the distinctive feature of numerous asymmetric and uneven meters that are technically challenging and enigmatic. The ensemble's music also included the musically related Irish and Jewish heritages. The ensemble, co-directed by Richard and by Ron Muller, who made certain that all the proper embellishments, accidentals, accelerando changes, beat pattern variations, internal phrasing, "flavoring," etc. in each melody were employed -- tunes are not simplified and are all played at the proper tempo, with the proper rhythms from 2/4 to a double-compound 7/8 + 11/8, and propeer scales from major to modal to synthetic. The ensemble had hundreds of credits from university recitals