Rick White’s adventures outside of Catlin Gabel School | Humans of Catlin Gabel

By Theo Butler ‘25

Rick White outside the math building.  

Photo by Theo Butler’25

Many Upper School students only know Rick White as one of the computer science and math teachers, but those who have taken his class may have had a glimpse at who he is outside of the classroom. Often, when students are working, he’ll start talking about where he went paragliding (not hang gliding) over the weekend or times his photos have been used without his permission. These stories have left many of his students wondering who he is outside of school and what he really does with his time.

White grew up in Spokane, Washington. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Portland, where he ran cross-country. After graduating, he started traveling around the world, living in Taiwan for two years, Germany for four years, and Indonesia for three years. 

During his time in Taiwan, White began his martial arts journey, picking up kickboxing alongside his wife. He had been a runner in high school and college and wanted to continue to stay fit and work out, but he also wanted to try something new, and martial arts were the perfect opportunity to do so.

He loved going to the gym and practicing with punching bags. “Those things are designed to take the hits, and they're designed to allow you to continue to hit. So the whack the sounds they make, especially if the room has sort of fun acoustics…it's so satisfying,” said White. 

He continued practicing martial arts in Germany and Indonesia and began learning Muay Thai in the latter country. Although he never competed in any of these sports, he sparred and trained a lot, greatly enjoying the experience. 

After Indonesia, White moved back to Portland for six years, where he began working at the Catlin Gabel School (CGS). He continued working at CGS until the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 when he moved to Laos with his family. 

Before White left Portland, he bought a drone with the hopes of capturing photos and videos of the mountains to show his family and to have for himself. He had done some landscape and street photography in the past and wanted to be able to film areas he wouldn’t normally be able to. 

As he was flying the drone in Laos, he noticed a man flying around in the same area on a paramotor. “It was so satisfying to see the footage,  in real-time, but I'm also at the hotel or at the bungalow, just watching from a chair and I'm like, ‘God, how cool would it be to be up there, and watching this?’” said White. 

This inspired him to find this man on Facebook, and it turned out that he owned a hot air balloon business. Even though White had little interest in hot air balloons, he still reached out to the man and asked if he would teach him about paramotoring. The man agreed, and White began paying him for lessons, at least once a month for about three years. 

White enjoyed paramotoring while in Laos, but described it as not “organic” and “like there’s no problem-solving.” When he moved back to Oregon after three years in Laos, he decided to pick up paragliding–similar to paramotoring, except there isn’t a large propeller attached to your back, and you are simply gliding the whole time.

Once he moved back, he started going to a paragliding school on the Oregon coast and found paragliding much more rewarding than paramotoring. The problem-solving elements were far more engaging to him, describing the challenge of paragliding. White said, “It's quite difficult to stay in the air, but if you have the right conditions and the right wind and maybe temperature and you can look for the right signs in the landscape, you can stay up for hours and hours and hours and just on one flight and you can go hundreds of miles.”

Paragliding equipment is also very lightweight, and he can hike up to the top of a butte or small mountain with nothing but a small backpack and then paraglide down. 

He says that lots of the excitement of paragliding comes from the perceived danger, and while there were many times when he felt in danger, looking back, there were very few in which he was actually in danger. 

The two times where he felt the most in danger, were the time when part of the wing folded in on itself, and when he was approaching the side of a hill, but wasn’t going fast enough, and felt himself start to rotate, but not move. This led him to believe that he was going to flip over. He managed to sort both of these scenarios out, and looking back, he said that all of the times he has gone paragliding it has been pretty safe. 

This idea of perceived risk vs actual risk is what has caused White to not scuba dive frequently, even though he has done it many times before. He says that there is little inherent risk in scuba diving, and any potential danger comes from mistakes on his part or equipment malfunctions. These types of potential danger don’t give the same adrenaline rush as paragliding does. 

Although White himself doesn’t find that much of a rush from scuba diving, he has encouraged his daughters to do so. He also got them into rock climbing and other adventurous activities, but he doesn’t want to introduce them to paragliding. 

White expressed how he doesn’t want his daughter to partake in an activity that they don’t understand the dangers of. “So when I'm thinking about introducing them to a sport like this, if I encourage them, they'll do it and they don't understand the risks like I do,” said White.  

White cares deeply about his family. He has known his wife since high school, even stealing a basketball to give to her for Valentine’s Day. 

While some of these activities may be difficult for White to continue doing, with his drone being at the bottom of the ocean in Laos and the worry his knees might snap in half if he tried to kickbox again, he hopes to continue his and his family’s safe yet adventurous lifestyle. Currently, his daughters enjoy rock climbing and scuba diving, and he hopes they will paraglide with him someday when they are old enough.