Rick Kelly grew up in New Jersey. At the age of 18 he started his migration west, first as an undergraduate at The University of Pittsburgh and then as a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati. Receiving a Masters Degree in Occupational and Environmental Health, Rick took a job at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo. A couple of years later he moved to Cal, then Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, finally Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Rick and his wife Kim both retired in 2015. The couple moved to Castro Valley in 1988 and has lived in town ever since, for 30 years in their current home on (Josiah) Brickell Way. Their son Ian is a graduate of the Castro Valley School system and Merritt College and works as a Radiologic Technologist at Washington Hospital in Fremont. Rick started a small Castro Valley history project in the winter of 2018, simply seeking to document the ownership of the land he lives on back to town namesake Guillermo Castro. Given the recent availability of digital resources, the project evolved into a comprehensive new look at the evolution of Guillermo Castro's pastureland into large American grain farms, smaller fruit farms, still smaller chicken ranches and finally suburban homes.