"Purdue Electrical Engineering helped drive me to what I am capable of doing. From Dr. Ken Coleman and Dr. Paul Krausse early at Purdue, to Mark Smith and Margarita Contreni teaching me to always give back, Purdue is always taking me to the highest peak!"

 

Rich Niemiec (BSEE ’87) of Oswego, Illinois, is CEO and co-founder of TUSC. An “Inc. 500,” Chicago-based systems integrator of Oracle-based business solutions, TUSC was the Oracle Partner of the Year in 2002 and 2004. Niemiec is past president of the International Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and the current president of the Midwest Oracle Users Group (MOUG), in addition to being one of six originally honored worldwide Oracle Certified Masters.

In 1999 Niemiec authored the Oracle best-seller Oracle Performance Tuning Tips & Techniques and in 2003 authored Oracle9i Performance Tuning Tips & Techniques. The Oracle10g tuning book came out in July 2007. Niemiec has been IOUG’s top speaker six times and MOUG’s top speaker 12 times. Along with TUSC co-founders Brad Brown and Joe Trezzo, Niemiec won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2001. He was inducted into the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 1998, the same year he received the Arthur Anderson Best Practices Award.