Charles Eric “Rick” Estberg

Class of 1975: Intelligence officer

For more than 45 years, Charles Eric “Rick” Estberg served the U.S. government as a linguist, senior intelligence officer, instructor and foreign relations manager.

He was born Jan. 22, 1954, in Redwood City, California. At Ripon, had a combined foreign language major – German, Russian and French – and got accredited to teach high school German. He took advantage of Ripon’s Bonn program to spend a year in Germany as a junior, and that affected the course of his life and career.

Estberg always had a love of words and languages, and, thanks to the junior year abroad, he found he loved living in Europe. Within weeks of graduating from Ripon, he joined the Army and returned to Germany as a linguist for three years. While there, received a master’s degree in international relations from Boston University and, later, another BA, in history, from the University of Maryland.

After a four-year stint in the Army, Rick began his civilian career with the National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland in January 1980.

“As part of the intelligence community, we at NSA are in business to provide support to decision-makers in Washington so they can make smart decisions,” Estberg said. “We provide the type of “inside” information that otherwise would be denied them.”

Over the course of his more than 40-year career at NSA, Estberg served in numerous capacities, including linguist/reporter, senior policy staff officer, speech writer for his agency’s director (a three-star admiral), chief of staff of the Interagency Operations Security Support Staff, and senior intelligence officer and adviser at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

He also spoke at hundreds of security conferences and training events for U.S. military units, federal departments, major defense contractors and homeland security organizations.

In 1997, he was selected as a Brookings Fellow and served on Capitol Hill on the personal staff of U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA). In 2006, he was the recipient of the Meritorious Civilian Service Award, his agency’s second highest recognition.

Estberg is a regular blood donor. His first donation came as a freshman at Ripon. Since then, he has donated more than 100 times.

After becoming interested in drama at Ripon, he has been involved in community theater in the Annapolis area, performing in more than a dozen plays and musicals. For years, he served as a docent at Ford’s Theatre, where he told the story of Lincoln’s assassination to more than 15,000 visitors. He also has served as a docent at the National Cryptologic Museum, located adjacent to NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. For many years he has tutored math at a local correctional facility, for inmates striving to obtain their high school equivalency diploma.

His book “Berlin Daze: Tales of a Cold Warrior on the ‘Island of Freedom,” recounts the exciting, intriguing, humorous and entertaining recollections of the years he spent living 100 miles behind the Iron Curtain during the height of the Cold War, as an intelligence professional for the Army from 1976-1979 and as a National Security Agency civilian from 1982-1986.

Those in the intelligence field can rarely boast of their skills and achievements to friends and family, Estberg said, “but the payoff lies in knowing that there are few jobs in this country today with more potential for a true, long-lasting benefit to our nation. Paychecks are nice; knowing you are serving your nation in this most critical time is even nicer.”

He received Ripon’s Distinguished Alumni Citation in 2010.