[1] William H. Keith served in the United States Navy as a hospital corpsman from 1969 to 1972 during the Vietnam War era.
William H. Keith Jr. and his brother J. Andrew Keith noticed ads in Journal of the Travellers Aid Society which announced that Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was looking for authors; Loren Wiseman hired them to start freelancing for GDW in 1978 or 1979, and the three worked together on a lot of the early material for the Traveller universe.
[1]: 75 The Keith brothers also designed Freedom Fighters (1986), one of the final role-playing games published by FGU.
Keith also writes under various pseudonyms and "house names", including Ian Douglas and H. Jay Riker, and is a shadow author of several books "by" celebrities.
As H. Jay Riker he writes military fiction: a series about the United States Navy SEALs progression from World War II through the Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and Iraqi Freedom, and another series, The Silent Service, about the United States submarine service.
Other novels include Diplomatic Act with Peter Jurasik, and Two of Minds, nominated for a Newbery Award.