Dr. Richard Navarro

Dr. Richard Navarro, PhD

Dr. Richard Navarro, Ph. D, Audiology & Speech Pathology, will test your hearing and share with you the cause of your hearing troubles. With over 50 years of experience and 60 years as a hearing aid user, Dr. Navarro is the expert in hearing care. Most importantly, he will help you learn what you can do about it. While it may only be earwax, it could be a dangerous medical problem! Dr. Navarro is a graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with extensive experience helping people around the world.

He brings 40 years of management and administrative experience, 14 inventions, four issued patents with two patents pending, and scores of professional publications and presentations. While at Lake Michigan College, Dr. Navarro took a course in speech correction, which led him to WMU. He was initially drawn here because of Dr. Charles Van Riper, a pioneer in the field of speech-language pathology and audiology, and founder of the Speech Pathology and Audiology program at WMU.

Outside of teaching for 17 years as a university professor, working as an audiologist for 52 years and doing missionary work with deaf children in Central America, Dr. Navarro has dedicated himself to a critical environmental cause. Today, he’s the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Innovation Officer of Renewable Ocean Energy, Inc., where he’s invented a revolutionary method to produce low-cost, reliable renewable energy on any water source—without sun, wind, batteries, tides, currents or a dam.

In short, he’s never let his hearing impairment stop him from doing anything, even fighting to resolve the hydroelectric energy crisis. His advice for the next generation: “Accept everyone else and be kind! Don’t be intimidated when you encounter someone smarter than you. It will happen, so learn from them and teach them what they don’t know.”