Eugene McDermott
In 1951, McDermott, along with Cecil Howard Green, Patrick E. Haggerty, and J. Erik Jonsson co-founded Texas Instruments. This was done when the company changed its name to Texas Instruments; GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. This acknowledged that the company had changed its focus from one primarily devoted to oil exploration to one focused on manufacturing. McDermott was the Chairman of TI from 1951-1957, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Board of Directors from 1957-1964 and Director until his death in 1973. During this period of time, Texas Instruments rose to be one of the world's largest corporations.
Stafford, Texas
Texas Instruments (TI) operates a production facility in Stafford, where it manufactures wafers used in cell phones, high-definition televisions, and solar devices. The plant first opened in 1967. In 2009, TI, which had around 1,500 employees in its Stafford office during that year, was the largest employer in the city. In 2012, the company announced it is closing its Stafford plant because industry demand for larger, more efficient wafers increased and the company, in lieu of upgrading the Stafford plant to accommodate production of larger wafers, opted to shift production to newer plants. Of the 1,000 employees at the plant during that year, TI laid off 500 and sent 500 to another facility. Leonard Scarcella, the Mayor of Stafford, said that the closure would adversely affect Stafford.