{"id":19183,"date":"2014-09-23T16:13:23","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T16:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=19183"},"modified":"2025-01-28T21:54:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T02:54:23","slug":"eight-questions-with-rich-twilley-96-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/09\/eight-questions-with-rich-twilley-96-04\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Questions With: Rich Twilley ’96 & ’04"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rich<\/a>
Rich Twilley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Heidi Douglas<\/p>\n

Rich Twilley recently joined the virtual law firm Athorus, PLLC as a patent attorney. Founded by Larry Harris in 2011, Athorus serves national clients, independent of the traditional \u2018bricks and mortar\u2019 paradigm with Twilley and Harris working from bicoastal home offices in Glastonbury and Seattle, respectively.\u00a0 Prior to Athorus, Twilley practiced at McCormick, Paulding & Huber LLP.\u00a0 After earning his B.S. in Civil Engineering at UConn, he served as a U.S. Naval Officer for five years. After that, he attended UConn Law, get his degree in 2004. \u00a0\u00a0In 2012 and 2013, Twilley was named a Connecticut Rising Star in intellectual property by Super Lawyers magazine<\/a>. He serves on the boards of the UConn Alumni Association and UConn Law School Alumni Association.<\/p>\n

Momentum #1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Why did you choose engineering?<\/p>\n

Twilley:<\/strong> \u00a0I chose engineering because, for me, mere learning and knowledge weren\u2019t enough.\u00a0 I wanted to do something with what I was about to learn: to pick up the proverbial ball and sprint with it.\u00a0 Because I saw the liberal arts as a scalar, and engineering as a vector, engineering was an easy choice.<\/p>\n

Momentum #2:<\/strong>\u00a0 What is your fondest memory of your time at UConn?<\/p>\n

Twilley:<\/strong>\u00a0 There are too many to count.\u00a0 UConn grew in so many transformational ways during my time there as both an engineering student and a law student, and so did I.\u00a0 My memories of my time there shaped the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

Momentum #3:<\/strong>\u00a0 Who or what had the greatest influence on your learning experience?<\/p>\n

Twilley:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0My classmates, neighbors and fellow students.\u00a0 Since UConn is such a vibrant, diverse incubator of thought, you can learn almost as much from your peers as you can from the faculty.\u00a0 Had I spent those years in a vacuum, the value of my degrees would be far less.<\/p>\n

Momentum #4:<\/strong>\u00a0 What did you do immediately after graduation?<\/p>\n

Twilley:<\/strong>\u00a0 During college, I was selected for a nuclear engineering officer program with the U.S. Navy.\u00a0 Six weeks after graduation, I was stationed at the Navy\u2019s Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Fla., for three months of high-quality face time with some U.S. Marines.\u00a0 I was commissioned as an officer in September 1996, and spent five years in the Navy, including about three-and-a-half years aboard a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine homeported here in Connecticut.\u00a0 When my naval service was complete, I returned to UConn to enroll in the School of Law in 2001.<\/p>\n

Momentum #5:<\/strong>\u00a0 When was the last time that you visited Storrs?<\/p>\n

Twilley:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0I try to get out to Storrs as frequently as I can.\u00a0 My last visit was two weeks ago for an Alumni Association meeting, and frankly, I can\u2019t wait to get back.<\/p>\n

Momentum #6:<\/strong>\u00a0 Are you in contact with any fellow alumni?<\/p>\n

Twilley:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes, frequently, on a daily or even hourly basis.\u00a0 My experiences as both an engineering student and a law student at UConn resulted in personal and professional relationships that framed my future and will last forever, and I rely upon them every day.<\/p>\n

Momentum #7:<\/strong>\u00a0 If you knew then, what you know now, how would that have affected you?<\/p>\n

Twilley:<\/strong>\u00a0 With the benefit of hindsight, I may have changed my major to something more appropriate for my service in the Navy (e.g., mechanical, electrical or chemical engineering) or for what I do today (such as computer science & engineering; I presently help clients patent and protect computer-related inventions).\u00a0 One thing I would never do is revisit my choice to enroll in the School of Engineering<\/p>\n

Momentum #8:<\/strong>\u00a0 What piece of advice would you offer current engineering students?<\/p>\n

Twilley:\u00a0<\/strong> Here are two:\u00a0 first, an engineering degree from the University of Connecticut can take you anywhere, from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the world.\u00a0 With a UConn engineering degree, all things are possible, and you are limited only by the breadth of your dreams and the depth of your desires.\u00a0 Second, even after you graduate, do whatever you can to maintain a relationship with UConn as an Alumnus \u2014 e.g., stay in touch with your professors, mentor a UConn student, buy season tickets, contribute to the UConn Foundation \u2014 and you will be repaid tenfold.\u00a0 UConn needs the support of its Alumni now, more than ever.\u00a0 After all, graduation is called \u201ccommencement,\u201d a French word meaning \u201cbeginning,\u201d for a reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rich Twilley, ’96 & ’04, talks with Heidi Douglas in this issue’s “Eight Questions With…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":224158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[2494],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-19183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr","tag-httpnews-engr-uconn-eduwp-contentuploadsfaculty121-jpg"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 05:37:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224166,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183\/revisions\/224166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/224158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19183"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=19183"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}