It could be said that Dick Hilmer is charting new waters. He's been involved in advertising and public relations on and off for the last 18 years, including director of his own agency, Hilmer-Doucette Advertising, and as market manager of the fourth edition of the Insiders' Guide to Cape Cod. But his desire to write the fifth edition of the Cape guide finally won out and set him in a new direction.

A Renaissance man, Hilmer was born in Coral Gables, Florida, raised in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and educated at the University of Vermont, where he received a bachelor of science degree in education. He began his career in 1977 as a teacher, then worked as an advertising director at the Vermont Vanguard Press, a grassroots arts and news weekly in Burlington, Vermont; and later as an advertising coordinator at the Wood River Journal in Hailey, Idaho. He has also been a firefighter in Idaho, a linesman for Idaho Power, performing arts director of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities, director of marketing for the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, and advertising bureau manager for the Cape Cod Times Falmouth office. He was a tennis professional with Laver/Emerson Tennis in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and has been to the Nationals in Class A softball. As an avid outdoorsman, he recently united a group of outdoor guides on Cape Cod to form Explore Cape Cod, a service offering visitors nature walks, kayak trips, and seal cruises. He lives in South Orleans in a restored farmhouse with his wife and two daughters.