Richard Earl Rogers was born to Julian and Jo Ruth Rogers on November 18, 1941 in Uvalde Texas. His middle name was given after his father's best friend Earl Lomax, and he has gone by Earl his entire life. He was the younger of two boys, his older brother Jimmy was born fourteen months before. Soon after, the Rogers family moved to Sierra Vista where they lived on base at Fort Huachuca where Julian worked. In 1947 the base closed and the family was transferred to Vandenberg Airforce base in Lompoc, CA. Four years later, with the outbreak of the Korean war, Fort Huachuca was reopened and the Rogers moved back to Arizona.

Around this time Earl met Ginny Sherbundy with whom he would be friends and then partners for the next seventy years. Ginny worked at her parents' soda fountain and Earl often visited her there.

Earl loved working on cars and got a job as a teenager at a local service station. He also helped his father and brother build their house that is still in the area today. This would be the beginning of a lifetime of building and fixing everything he could get his hands on.

Earl was a member of the 20 person, first graduating class of Buena High School in 1959. He had previously attended Tombstone High. After graduation, Earl went to Eastern Arizona University where he studied forestry from 1959 to 1961. In 1962 he went to work for the Arizona forestry department and also the Highway Department and worked as a surveyor. In 1964, Earl joined the army and served, mostly in Europe until 1966. When he returned home, Earl and Ginny were married on July 2nd, 1966. Earl soon after, enrolled at Arizona State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in 1970.

After getting his degree, Earl went to work for Standard Oil which would later become Chevron. He and Ginny moved to San Diego and he built several service stations around Southern California as well as a refueling pier for the tuna fleet that still stands right near Lindbergh Field airport in San Diego.

In 1971 Earl and Ginny were given the sad news that they would be unable to have children. They went out and adopted a dog, Ginger, from the pound and bought a two-seater sports car. Of course, this prompted an unexpected surprise, the birth of their son Richard in 1972. After this miracle, the doctors assured them that this was a complete fluke and would never happen again. Naturally, their second son Christopher was born two years later. Right after their second son was born, the family moved north to Petaluma, California. This would be the first of several moves around the country over a long successful career with Chevron.

Earl changed positions at work and went from being an engineer to being in purchasing, and then eventually worked in a worldwide materials management role. During his career, Earl worked on and visited projects in Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Sakhalin Island, and Chile. Over the years, the family would move from Petaluma to Kennewick, WA, then back to Petaluma. In 1978, the family moved to Arcadia, CA and then Pascagoula, Mississippi and then back to Petaluma in 1981. From Petaluma they moved to Nederland, Texas, where their son Richard graduated high school in 1990 and went off to the University of Texas at Austin. Earl, Ginny, and Christopher moved back out west to Dublin California where Christopher graduated high school in 1992 and attended the University of California at Santa Barbara. The moving continued when Earl and Ginny moved to Irvine, California in 1993 where Earl retired from Chevron in 1994 on a Friday and went back to work for Bechtel Construction on the next Monday. Later, he would work for Parsons and then eventually retire for good in 2003, a few years after another move to Houston in 1995. Still unable to sit still, the happy couple moved to Edmond, Oklahoma and eventually joined their oldest in Coppell, Texas in 2013.

Earl and Ginny had always wanted a daughter, and in 1991 when their youngest son was an exchange student to Russia, they got their wish, when his counterpart in the exchange, Anya moved in for a few months. A short time later, when Anya graduated from high school, she came back to the US and lived with Earl and Ginny until she graduated from the University of Houston in 1998.

Earl's inability to sit still was probably one of his most defining traits. After retirement, he spent the rest of his life volunteering at every opportunity. He worked with Coppell's community garden. He also served on the STEM advisory panel for the Coppell school district. He helped to train firefighters and police officers, volunteered at the arts center, built and repaired little free libraries around town, and generally worked tirelessly to make the world a better place.

Throughout his life, Earl had many jobs and served in many roles, but none so important to him as that of being a grandfather. Earl, known as "Pops" to his grandkids and then to many more, made it a point to connect with his grandkids individually and built a relationship and many lasting memories with each of them. He was proud to be Pops to Richard and Anne's kids Caitlin and Nick, Christopher and Cindy's kids, Elizabeth, Amelia, and Grace, and Anya and Cyrill's kids, Evan and Max.

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