R Blank has been an interactive designer, developer, author and teacher for 15 years. He is currently CTO of Almer/Blank, an Adobe Alliance Partner based in Venice, California that specializes in video and application development for the Flash Platform, for Fortune 500 clients including E! Entertainment Television, Apple, DirecTV and IKEA. R is also co-founded the Rich Media Institute, providing specialized workshops for interactive media professionals around the world and online at richmediainstitute.com .

He is the lead author of ‘AdvancED Flex Application Development’ from Apress and was one of the first 50 certified Flash developers in the world. Additionally, R founded and runs LA Flash, a community of over 1,500 industry professionals and home to three Adobe User Groups (AUGs) for Flash. R also teaches Flash on the engineering faculty at the University of Southern California. Previously, R co-founded Wildform, where he co- created Flix, the first video encoder for Flash (now owned by On2). R has an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BA from Columbia University.

His personal blog is RBlank.com.