He was born in 1874 near Granville, Ohio to Charles and Susan Deeds. Deeds graduated in 1897 from Denison University where he was valedictorian. He studied electrical engineering at Cornell University, but was unable to complete his graduate studies due to lack of sufficient funds. He married Edith M. Walton (1870-1949).
Relocating to Dayton, Ohio, he began working as an electrical engineer and draftsman for the Thresher Company, designing and installing electric motors. After eighteen months, he was named superintendent and chief engineer of the firm. The National Cash Register Company was headquartered in the same building as the Thresher Company and in 1899, Frederick Patterson invited Deeds to join "the Cash" to strengthen its team. There he oversaw the electrification of the NCR factories and built its first electric generating station. He left NCR to build the Shredded Wheat factory, known as the Palace of Light, for Henry Perky at Niagara Falls. The factory was white-tiled, air-conditioned, well-lit, and equipped with showers, lunchrooms, and auditoriums for the employees and clearly was influenced by Deeds' exposure to the ideas of John H. Patterson at NCR. The Palace of Light preceded the Pure Food and Drug Act's requirements for a clean work environment for food production by 6 years. Deeds was a director of Perky's National Food Company.
In 1903 he returned to NCR as chief of development and construction. Deeds constructed some prototype electric motors to demonstrate that they could be used to power cash registers. He hired Charles F. Kettering to prove the concept and three years later, Kettering had a working production model which revolutionized the register business and established National Cash Register as the dominant manufacturer worldwide for decades. Deeds oversaw the establishment of NCR factories in England, France, Italy, Germany and Canada. In February 1913.
Kettering and Deeds had a lifelong professional relationship and friendship. Deeds provided space in one of his barns for Kettering to work on an electric starter for automobiles. In 1909, Henry Leland of the Cadillac Company ordered 5,000 ignition sets and Deeds and Kettering formed the Dayton Engineering Laboratories company, Delco. Delco was eventually sold to United Motors Company which was later acquired by General Motors. Deeds was a member of the board of United Motors.
