For Rob Brown, the decision was easy.

The state was offering to help displaced Farmland workers get back on their feet by paying for schooling.

&uot;Obviously it was something that was too good to not take advantage of,&uot; Brown said.

Brown, 47, is set to graduate from Riverland Community College this week. He’ll have earned two degrees &045; one in e-commerce and one in Web site design &045; in the amount of time a normal student would take to get one.

His journey has been eventful.

After going to college for a few years out of high school, Brown ran out of money. He had to drop out. Later, he attended the Anoka Vocational Technology school and earned a degree in electronics. For 25 years he worked in the field, traveling throughout the United States and the world. In 1987, he moved to Beijing, China and worked for a company that made MRI machines.

He enjoyed the experience greatly, but he longed to return home to Albert Lea. So he and his family moved back and he began working at the Farmland plant, first as an electrical technician, then as a supervisor.

When the fire burned down his place of employment in July 2001, he and many other workers with families wondered what they would do.

&uot;I knew I wanted to stay in Albert Lea,&uot; Brown said. &uot;I had kept my son away from his grandparents and extended family for long enough.&uot;

But since Brown had gone to China, the world had changed a little bit. When he’d left, the personal computer could be learned by reading just one book. When he looked now, he saw that it would require an &uot;encyclopedia of knowledge&uot; to learn about computers, and thought it was something he should learn.

After working through the summer after the fire at a meat packing plant in Independence, Iowa, Brown knew he had to do something to find employment or at least stay in Albert Lea. He heard some of his co-workers talk about a state program that funded re-education for displaced workers.

After clocking out for the last time in Iowa, Brown drove straight up to Riverland and signed up for courses. By the end of the day, he was listening to his first lecture.

In the last two years, Brown packed in as many courses as he could and took the time to teach a few courses on the side.

As he walks the halls, professors and fellow students alike greet him readily and easily. They see him everywhere.

A hard worker, Brown knows he needs to separate himself from the pack if he wants to get a job in this economy.

&uot;I’d like to be able to differentiate myself from my 21-year-old classmates who have the same degree as me but has the edge in the age category,&uot; he said.

For this reason, Brown is looking at doing a &uot;2-plus-2&uot; program at Southwest State University, where he can delve further into computer courses and, in two years, receive a four-year degree in his field.

Brown said he will miss Riverland greatly when he graduates.

&uot;They have great facilities here,&uot; he said. &uot;But more importantly, they have a great staff. They don’t just have teaching experience, but they’ve actually worked in the field, and that’s important.&uot;