The Discovery Channel’s documentary series, Gold Rush, has kept its head above water thanks to important personalities like Rick Ness. Rick is a well-known gold-digger and appears in the hit series as an excavator and rock truck driver. Like some of his colleagues in the series, Ness’s career as a gold-digger and his interest in the area began at a later age. At first, he was actively interested in sports, then music, before he ventured into the demanding gold mining business. Here you will find everything you need to know about him.
Rick Ness Bio
He was born on March 5, 1981, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is an American citizen and white ethnicity. Growing up, Ness was always keen on sports and took an active part during his school days. As a big soccer fan, Ness was a college football player and quite remarkable on his team. However, after he suffered a serious injury, he bowed to his football career. His next option was music.
For the ex-football player, who attended concerts with various band groups before making his decision, it was quite an adventure to enter the music business. Seeing where he belonged, he started learning double bass and soon became a double bass player in the .357 String Band he formed. During his time with the .357 String Band, the group released albums such as Ghost Town, Lightning From the North, and Fire & Hail, and also toured several times. During one of these tours, Rick Ness came into contact with Parker Schnabel, also a gold rush star. To be exact, the two met during the band’s tour at the Southeast Alaskan State Fair.
Ness’s encounter with Schnabel, whose grandfather founded the Big Nugget Mine, led to his entering the third season of the show. He had expressed his interest in the Gold Rush adventures to Parker, who invited him to join the show after a few months. While Schnabel was an oldie in the business, working to preserve his family’s legacy in the mines, Ness’s experience came from his involvement with heavy machinery in his family’s commercial construction company.
The third season of Gold Rush was aired in 2010 and Rick Ness was Peter’s, right-hand man. He was quite experienced with heavy machinery and equipment, which gave him a significant contribution to the show. Through Ness’s presence during the crew’s second tour of Indian River, Parker and his team acquired nearly 4000 ounces of gold. He had delivered over 1200 ounces, which greatly increased the team’s production.
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His Net Worth
Everyone knows how lucrative the gold mining business is and how the successful show Goldrausch has reached even greater heights thanks to its enormous audience. Rick Ness is one of the beneficiaries and has enough to show for his work in the show. His net worth has been estimated by some sources at $3 million, while others have estimated it at around $600,000.
However, a plausible explanation to support these estimates would be the miner’s fruitful exploits with various crew members of the show. Apart from his successes with Parker’s crew, he also worked with Todd Hoffman’s crew, where he also had great successes. Rick Ness’s annual salary is between $120,000 and $200,000 per year, which is quite reasonable for a man of his caliber. He leads a comfortable life and has his own house and luxury cars.
Family Facts – Parents, Twin Brother
Not everyone knows that Rick Ness from Gold Rush is a twin. Before we talk about his twin, we want to know something about his parents. He was born in Milwaukee as the son of Richard Ness, his father, and Judy Marie Bedard, his mother. Rick lost his mother in 2018, and after a long battle with cancer, Judy finally gave up the ghost that year, and this was received with great sadness by her family. Her death came years after her divorce from Richard Ness.
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Rick has a twin brother named Randy Ness. The Ness twins grew up together and worked in their family’s construction company, Roy Ness Contracting and Sales Inc. which was founded by their grandfather Roy Ness in Michigan, Escanaba. Randy works as a mechanic for the company and is married to Jen Ness.
