Richard James Kavanaugh (1932-2012) was born in Beaumont, Texas, and grew up in East Caddo Parish, Louisiana. From 1950 to 1954. he attended Louisiana Tech University, then transferred to the Georgia Institute of Technology where he graduated with a degree in industrial management in 1955. He served as a jet pilot in the United States Air Force from 1955 to 1960 then worked a variety of jobs, including a dealer for Piper Aircraft, a fixed base operator at the Tifton Municipal airport in Tifton, Georgia, and two more fixed base operations in Moultrie, Georgia, and Parkaire Field, Georgia. He moved to Atlanta in 1968 to sell real estate and insurance. After 1975, he worked for International Publications on the magazine Missing, and then became a partner in Cavco, Inc., which published the gay nightlife and travel magazine Cruise from 1976 through the 1980s. In 1983, he moved back to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he published The Real Estate Book of Shreveport/Bossier and started a senior magazine that became known as The Golden Years in 2001.