Resume Theo Richel

Theo Richel (1954, married to landscape designer José van der Kaaij, father of Nora, Emma, Sam and Felix and Thomas (†)) has been a freelance journalist since 1980. The following subjects have his permanent attention:
* food/medicine
* environmental health scares such as radiation, toxic chemicals and climate
* aging
* divorce/domestic violence

The past few years his activities have concentrated on De Groene Rekenkamer, a cooperation of 5 organisations who claim that many peoples lives could be saved if environmental health policy were based on analysis of the real risks we face instead of on the alarmist messages of environmental organisations.

His written material has appeared in almost every newspaper or magazine in the Netherlands. Incidentally articles have appeared in England (Guardian, The European Times, the New European), Germany (Die Woche, Transatlantik, Traumhäuser), Danmark (Politiken), Spain (El Europeo), Italy (l' Indipendente), Belgium (Humo), Ireland (Phenix Mag), Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine, TechCentralStation.
A more complete resume in Dutch is found at www.richel.org/cvtr 

Below are links to some articles in English:

* Julian Simon: Everything is getting better!
* One Europe? You must be joking.
* Sex drugs (from before the marketing of Viagra)
* Betting on the future (can bets advance science?)
* Environmentalism kills
* Deadly assumptions: radiation and risk
* Aging: will we all live 300 years?

Apart from writing Theo Richel has done a lot of radio work, some tv work and several other things.

Radio: for the past 15 years he has had his own weekly radio shows, both on national and regional radiostations in the Netherlands. Some examples: Het Proefkonijn (the 'Guinea pig' a series of broadcasts on gerontological issues in which the possibilities of reaching a high age were explored - in cooperation with several universities in the Netherlands), 'Vogels Vissen en Piet Smeerpoets' ('The birds, the bees and me the mucky pup' - a series of broadcasts on nature and environment. Quite critical towards the environmental movement which doesnt stop to unnecessarily scare us) and more recently 'Theosweb' (a series of broadcasts about computers, the internet and the like) and Vara's PUNCH.

His tv-experience is somewhat limited. He has done research and production for several tv-programs/ documentaries in the Netherlands (Rondom Tien, Brandpunt, Vara's Achter het Nieuws, Veronica Fitrace) and recently he has made (research/direction/editing)  two short documentaries for a regional station (7 min) about the building of a large tunnel.
Countless media appearances (written press/TV/radio) as a guest for all the subjects mentioned here.

The miscellaneous activities include the writing of a few books, the foundation of the Lovers of the Stinking Rose (an organisation of garlic devotees), the organisation of large dinners (200+ guests) and other large meetings (38.000 people max), distribution of software, chairing (semi-)governmental meetings, giving lectures, designing and maintaining a large computerised database (40.000 records, about a third of which in english, try it out here: http://www.richel.org/theodoc/english/index.php3 ), organising press campaigns, slide shows and exhibitions. From 1996-2003 he made an e-zine for divorced parents called Broken Link. Initially this focussed on the problems of fathers to stay in touch with their children after divorce,  but this has shifted towards a more general pro marriage- anti-divorce position. Since 2004 he also makes an e-zine about the environment called  'de Groene Rekenkamer' (the Green Accounting Office) in which the point of view is presented that the environment is clean enough now and that we should concentrate on more  relevant problems.

At his home office Theo Richel runs a local area network of 8 WinXP PC's under a Windows 2000  Advanced Server. The programs used are: MS Office 2003, Cool Edit pro, Archivista, Mail List King. This computer experience was instrumental in being asked to produce a weekly radioshow on computers and the internet ('TheosWeb'), and to do some consultancy for websites ('Provincie Zeeland', 'Mechelen Industrial'). On  the internet he maintains a MySQL database with a PHP interface. Computer-interests since 2006: Wordpress and Drupal.

Theo Richel
Stationsstraat 43
4421 AK Kapelle
The Netherlands
Tel +31 113 330030
Skype: TheoRichel
theo@richel.org