Writer/photographer Rick Vanderpool has marketed and sold his creative output for nearly forty years. Vanderpool graduated from the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications in 1975, worked for a year as staff photographer for Callaway Gardens and then opened an art studio in Athens, Georgia, working primarily with corporate interior designers, designing and producing custom wall art programs. Texas had developed as his major market, and in 1993, he relocated his studio to Commerce.

In 2000, Vanderpool published "Looking for Texas" – a unique collection of photos of the state name, at least one from each Texas county, gathered from traveling over twenty thousand miles in the Lone Star State from 1994 to 1999. His travel journal, by the same title, was published the following year by Republic of Texas Press.

The success of "Looking for Texas" and subsequent variations of Vanderpool's trademark Texas-themed photographic montage collections [www.stateart.net] is owed to his varied experience as author, imagist, teacher, newspaper publisher, speaker, entrepreneur and grandfather. He now resides in Lubbock, TX.

The Texas Hamburger – History of a Lone Star Icon is Vanderpool's second book – available now at Texas bookstores, on this site and on www.texashamburgertrail.com. The book is published by The History Press.