after three years at the college board, riccards moved back to his native new jersey and became the first executive director of the hall institute of public policy - new jersey in trenton. at the hall institute, he worked on creating a website, hallnj.org, established a television forum, a radio show, and published four volumes of essays from the website. he was named the new jersey representative on the national abraham lincoln bicentennial commission and headed up the state commission. he published a volume of his collected plays, and one of them on lincoln became a musical produced by genevieve fraser on behalf of the drama circle in massachusetts (2012).