Duane Couch
Owner - Electrical Solutions Corp

Over 25 years experienece in all phases of electrical construction, maintenance, process automation, and drilling rig control system repair.

Duane attended college at the Southwestern Oregon Community College in the mid-80s, followed by a stint at the Oregon Institute of Technology.

After graduating, he worked as an Electronics Engineer for a few years and then migrated toward providing support to the Oil & Gas and Water/Wastewater industries in the San Joaquin Valley as an Electrician and Automaion Specialist. 10 years later, he started his first company, Duane Couch Electric, followed 7 years after that by purchasing Electrical Solutions Corp.

Brief Timeline
1984-1987: Southwestern Oregon Community College
1987-1988: Oregon Institute of Technology
1988-1991: Pacific Coil Industries, Electronics Engineer
1991-1999: Madruga Electric

1998-present: Owner: Duane Couch Electric
2005-present: Owner: Electrical Solutions Corp
2011-present: Owner: Field Safety Training

Other interests of Duane include SCUBA diving, darts, photography and music.

You can also view the professional profile of Duane Couch on LinkedIn.

Rick Hurdle
Systems Integrator / Automation Specialist

Completion of 2 years toward an engineering degree combined with 12 years electrical experience, 5 years instrumentation experience, 8 years programming experience, and 2 years project management experience gives Rick a unique perspective which combines theoretical and practical knowledge.

His initial exposure to the electrical/automation field came at the Colorado School of Mines in 1982. At that time he also began an electrical apprenticeship with the Independent Electrical Contractor's Association working on large-scale commercial and industrial projects in Denver such as Hauser Chemical, Cobe Labs, Summit Biotech, ACX Technologies, and the CU Medical Center.

He has continued to increase his knowledge of electrical systems and has made steady progress into positions requiring greater responsibility.

In 1998, he obtained his Master Electrician License from the state of Colorado and, at the same time, his Electrical Contractor's License from the state of California. As an Automation Specialist, he focused on instrumentation systems for the Oil and Gas Industry—specification, installation, calibration, maintenance, repair and documentation.

By 2002, he had completed 8 weeks of PLC Programming classes at the Allen Bradley regional office in Cypress, followed by 4 additional weeks of training with Wonderware, covering HMI Development and Data Archiving. He became a Certified Application Developer for Wonderware, and he began to concentrate on the design, installation, and testing of PLC and HMI turnkey systems.

In 2007, he expanded his general programming knowledge by focusing on Web Programming and learning HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. The result was 3 new websites, including this one.

In 2014, frustrated by bloated operating systems and planned obsolescence, he began looking for platform-independent SCADA solutions. He is now a gold-certified integrator for Ignition—HMI software that runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Android, iOS... in fact, anything that runs Java.

Applying the principle of continuous improvement to himself, Rick takes two weeks off each year to keep up to date with the latest programming software... taking classes from Inductive Automation, Allen Bradley, Automation Direct, Maple Systems, Schneider, and Wonderware.

Lately he has been experimenting with using the Linux operating system as a platform for HMI development and SCADA integration. This project is at an early stage, but shows much promise.

When not working, Rick runs a website devoted to preserving the magic of Old Time Radio (audio drama from the 1930s to the present day).

You can also view the professional profile of Rick Hurdle on LinkedIn.