Rudolph Daniels is Assistant Dean and Department Chair of Railroad Operations Technology at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City. He was born in Trenton, N.J. and studied the oboe with some of the world's leading performers. He graduated from St. Francis College, Loretto, PA. He went on to Penn State University studying Russian/Soviet foreign policy, history, and Russian language and literature. He received his Ph.D. in 1971, and later developed his dissertation into a book: V. N. Tatishchev: Guardian of the Petrine Revolution. Daniels taught Russian studies at various colleges in Dubuque, Iowa before moving to W. Germany in 1974, where he taught English and French. Over the course of 22 years, he became Dept. Chair of History and Poli Sci and also taught woodwinds and music lit. classes. In 1996, he became Dept. Chair of the Behavioral Sciences at WITCC, where he began teaching courses in Railroad Operations Technology. Trains across the Continent was developed as a textbook for his classes at WITCC.