Dick formally joined TDW as a plastics engineer in 1971. A decade later, he was named executive vice president and chief operations officer, becoming president and CEO in 1992. Under Dick’s leadership TDW grew to more than 35 operating locations based in 14 countries. He became chairman of the board in 1994 and chairman emeritus in 2016.

Dick was a founding executive committee member and chairman of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Pipeline System Division (PSD). He helped form and then served as vice president of ASME’s International Petroleum Technology Institute (IPTI) and was instrumental in expanding ASME’s global industry outreach through the formation of the ASME/Pipeline System’s Sister Conferences: Rio Pipeline (Rio de Janeiro), The International Offshore Pipeline Forum (Houston, Texas) and the India Oil and Gas Pipeline Conference.

Among other achievements, Dick participated in framing the core elements of the U.S. in-line inspection (ILI) system and helped build the foundational elements of  the Distribution Integrity Management Program (DIMP) pipeline standard.