Richard Stockton Rush III (March 31, 1962 – June 18, 2023) was an American businessman who was the co-founder and chief executive officer of OceanGate, a deep-sea exploration company.

After graduation from Princeton University, Rush worked for McDonnell Douglas as a flight test engineer on their F-15 program.

[6] Through his father, he was a descendant of two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton and physician Benjamin Rush.

[11][12] After graduating from Princeton, Rush worked briefly for McDonnell Douglas as a flight-test engineer for the F-15 program before getting his MBA.

[13] He relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 1989 to manage the company Remote Control Technology based in Kirkland, Washington.

In 2006, after his first excursion in a submarine in British Columbia, Rush became interested in ocean exploration at lower depths.

In particular, he was critical of the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993, a United States law which regulated the construction of ocean tourism vessels and prohibited dives below 150 feet, which Rush described as a law which "needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation".

[19] In 2018, Rush piloted an expedition with researchers and scientists in the San Juan Islands to observe the red sea urchin and the habitat of the sand lance.

[28] On June 22, after the discovery of a debris field approximately 490 metres (1,600 ft) from the bow of the Titanic,[29] OceanGate said it believed Rush and the four others aboard had died.

[30] A United States Coast Guard press conference later confirmed that the debris found was consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure hull, an implosion, resulting in the instantaneous deaths of all aboard.