Richard Weening

Richard Weening (born December 24, 1945) is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

Richard Weening was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Richard W. Weening, a Friesian immigrant dairy farmer, and Alice Louise Young, from Mattoon, Illinois, whose family came to America in 1620 on the Mayflower. He graduated from Thomas Aquinas High School in 1963, where he was President of the Student Body. He obtained a BA degree from St. John's University. He was an aide to a U.S. Congressman Chief of Staff to the state Governor and later the founder and CEO of several privately held and public technology and media companies. Weening is currently President of QUAESTUS & Co., a private equity fund management company and Chairman and CEO of Prolitec Inc., a technology, media, and fragrance company specializing in commercial ambient scenting services. Prolitec is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and Milwaukee, Wisconsin and provides scenting services to several industry sectors including retail, hospitality, healthcare, transportation and commercial buildings in the U.S and 80 countries. Weening resides in Seattle, Washington.

From 1968 to 1970 Weening served as a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Congressman Henry S. Reuss (D-Wis). During this time, as a Reuss aide, Weening helped to start Northside Citizens Neighborhood Conservation Corporation, a not-for-profit low income housing development organization in Milwaukee to serve as a pilot demonstration of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 which Reuss and others had authored. He left Reuss in 1970 to run the gubernatorial campaign of Patrick J. Lucey and served as Governor Lucey's Chief of Staff until 1972. In 1972 he left the governor’s office to become National Political Director for New York Mayor John V. Lindsay’s bid for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Lindsey withdrew following his defeat in the Wisconsin primary. He subsequently served as Chairman of the Milwaukee Board of Harbor Commissioners from 1973 to 1984.

In 1972, Weening founded Advanced Learning Concepts Inc., to develop and publish teaching materials and programs for developmentally disabled children based on early childhood research work of the Waisman Center University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1974, Advanced Learning Concepts changed its name to Raintree Publishers and expanded into general educational publishing of non-fiction information and reference books for children in kindergarten to 12th grade. Weening served as President and Publisher from 1972 to 1985.

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