Richard Morningstar earned a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Harvard College and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1970.

In July 1998, he was assigned as a special advisor to the president and the Secretary of State for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy.

[3] Beginning in 2001, Ambassador Morningstar served as a senior director at the global strategy firm Stonebridge International (now Albright Stonebridge Group[4]) On 20 April 2009, Ambassador Morningstar was named to the position of the Special Envoy of the United States Secretary of State for Eurasian Energy.

[5] In that capacity Morningstar represented the United States at the signing ceremony of the intergovernmental agreement of the Nabucco pipeline.

[11] He gave a speech in defense of Free Thought University on April 11, 2013, a day after it was closed by the government of Azerbaijan.