SEATTLE – Industry veteran and cleaning expert Dr. Carl Tautscher died July 20 from complications from knee surgery. He was active in the electronics industry for more than 40 years.

Tautscher received his doctorate in general chemistry from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He was chairman of the IPC Cleaning and Contamination Control Subcommittee for five years. He was also the chairman of the Aqueous Post Solder Cleaning task group and served on the MIL-F-14256 task group.

During his career, Tautscher authored more than 50 articles and presentations on joining, cleaning, coating and related subjects, plus two textbooks and four minitexts on cleaning, coating and contamination effects.

In 1980, he received the E-Systems Creativity Award for a unique soldering process, and won a Best Article Award from Insulation Circuits in 1978 for his paper "Contamination Introduced by the Soldering Process.”

He also received the Special Recognition Award from IPC in 1996 for years of service and leadership in the efforts to complete IPC-AC-62A, the "Aqueous Post Solder Cleaning Handbook."