[1] [2] Born in 1905 in Verner, Ontario,[3] he moved to Sudbury in childhood with his father Félix Ricard, who became a hardware merchant in the city and a longtime trustee on the French-language school board.
[4] He married Alma Ricard in adulthood, and the couple took over management and operation of the store until moving into broadcasting.
[1] [5] Ten years later, in 1957, he became the first commercial radio broadcaster in Canada licensed to operate two AM stations in the same city.
[1] Due to the CRTC's rules at the time on concentration of media ownership, Ricard's radio stations continued to operate as a separate corporation from Ricard's shares in MCTV, although they were later merged through Mid-Canada Radio in 1985.
[7] Ricard was also involved in the community as chairman of the Sudbury General Hospital board, as chairman of the city's 1960s urban renewal project to revitalize Downtown Sudbury, and as president of the local chamber of commerce and the local chapter of the Kiwanis Club.