Dick's accumulated experience within the combined disciplines of undersea and hyperbaric medicine extends over 50 years. Following service in the British Royal Navy throughout the decade of the 1960's he spent two years a program director at the International Underwater Explorers Society, in the Bahamas. Dick then joined the seabed living program 'Hydrolab: operating and saturating in underwater habitats in the subtropics and beneath arctic ice, on behalf of the U.S. government's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Dick served as a faculty member for NOAA's diving medical officer training course for 25 years. From 1976 to 1985 he was employed by Oceaneering International as an oilfield saturation diving superintendant. During this period he was a member of the team that developed the diver medic training program and its subsequent board certification process.

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From 1985 until 2022 Dick centered his hyperbaric and diving medicine operational support, education and research programs at Richland Hospital/University of South Carolina School of Medicine. Over 8,000 health care professionals have trained in this setting. He founded the non-profit Baromedical Research Foundation in 1987. Initially a basic science laboratory, it evolved to become a centerpiece for an international clinical trials consortium. One of the Foundations' studies became the first randomized, controlled double-blind long-term follow-up trial to prove therapeutic efficacy of hyperbaric medicine in the setting of deficient wound healing states. More recent studies have addressed the potential radiation sensitization effect of hyperbaric oxygen in newly diagnosed squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck.

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Dick was instrumental in the development of the Certification in Hyperbaric Technology (CHT) program and continues to serve as president of its certification body, the National Board of Diving & Hyperbaric Medical  Technology. He has written a great many peer reviewed medical and technical publications and authored chapters in several undersea medicine and hyperbaric oxygen therapy textbooks. Dick serves as a subject matter expert for numerous of purchasers of health care, including Medicare and many leading commercial insurers.  He has held key committee and related leadership positions within the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.

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