For Immediate Release
November 5, 2007
Contact:
Tracy Kruse, Director of Marketing, News and Publications
563.562.3263 x.251; kruset@NICC.edu
Note: Abbreviation for Northeast Iowa Community College is NICC.
NICC ELECTRONICS GRADUATE DOING HIS PART FOR ENVIRONMENT
DUBUQUE - Most students today seeking out higher education would say that affordability is
important but even more so is the promise of finding a rewarding career that pays well and
provides opportunities to make the world a better place. Eric Deutsch, a 2003 Electronic
Engineering Technology program graduate of Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC),
found all of that at his local community college.
Deutsch, a Dubuquer and 1997 Hempstead High School graduate, is currently a project
manager for Unison Solutions, Inc., in Dubuque’s West End district. Deutsch calls upon his
NICC coursework in electronics, electrical circuitry, mathematics, chemistry, communication,
and computer programming in his daily work.
The company is the only one of its kind in the Dubuque area: Unison Solutions designs and
builds custom bio-gas compression and filtration equipment and sells the apparatus to
municipalities across the United States and in Canada. The equipment allows city governments
to re-use methane gas from landfills and waste water treatment plants in lieu of the common
practice of incineration, or “burning off,” of the released gases. Once extracted safely and
filtered for harmful chemical agents, the municipal governments can sell the gas to heavy
equipment operations to increase revenue, reduce waste, turn a profit on an abundant natural
resource and reduce dangerous impact to the environment.
“I’m using a lot of what I learned at NICC in my job at Unison, such as C++ computer
programming. I also draw upon the basic understanding of electricity, such as circuits and logic.
That’s where my NICC education matters: the logic of electronics applies to work I do every
day at Unison,” Deutsch said. As a project manager for Unison, the NICC alum’s duties also
include PLC programming, designing electronic control panels, testing control panels,
supervising construction and a variety of computer-aided mathematical work.
Deutsch takes pride that he is able to produce custom electrical circuits, integrated equipment,
and filtration devices in each gas skid to make a previously unprofitable and wasteful situation
into one that is environmentally-friendly and makes financial sense. Un-combusted methane,
volatile organic compounds and hydrogen sulfide harm the environment and contribute to global
warming, Deutsch said.
Similar to engineers who use the computer program AutoCAD to create architectural designs,
Deutsch uses Ladder Logic software to execute control sequences that test each customized
electronic panel for function and safety, and determine if everything is installed correctly before
shipping to the client.
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“NICC was affordable and a good, local place to attend college,” he said. “I talked to an NICC
advisor in 2000 and I decided NICC electronics program was the best choice.”
NICC Electronics Technology program is a two-year program that combines science,
engineering and math. Graduates of this program learn to solve problems in the development,
manufacture and service of electronic equipment and systems. Jobs are in three primary areas:
customer service, including market support, product services and quality assurance;
manufacturing, including assembly, testing and quality control; and product development,
including engineering support, assembly, testing and quality assurance. The median salary of
electronics technicians in the State of Iowa is $42,100.
Deutsch and his wife, Jessica, have three children and live in Dubuque.
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