About Us

Orion Technical College, formerly known as Hamilton Technical College, has been providing quality education to the Quad City community for 50 years.

Orion Technical College has been proud to provide the Quad City area quality technical training since 1969. From our humble beginning as the Academy of Radio and Television (ART) in Bettendorf, IA and then changing to becoming Hamilton Technical College and as of July of 2020 expects to be operating as Orion Technical College, continuing to evolve to meet the needs of the employment community as we continue to train students in technical and allied health fields.
Our founder, Charles Hamilton, Jr., began the college by preparing students to take the Federal Communications Commission examination for broadcasting. While teaching students around his kitchen table he envisioned going beyond test preparation to training students to be broadcasters. Soon his vision expanded with the needs of the employers in the community and an Electronics program developed in 1978. In 1980, as the program grew, the name was changed to Hamilton Technical College. In the 1990’s Hamilton Technical College responded to a need in our medical community by creating a Medical Assisting Technology Program and in 2006 the Medical Billing and Coding program was started. In an effort to define our two distinct program areas, Hamilton Technical College created the School of Technology (including Electronics Engineering Technology AS and BS degree programs) and the School of Allied Health (including Medical Assisting Technology and Medical / Insurance Coding Specialist Programs).