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.
Texas Instruments
TI continued to be active in the consumer electronics market through the 1970s and 1980s. Early on, this also included two digital clock models; one for desk, and the other a bedside alarm. From this sprang what became the Time Products Division, which made LED watches. Though these LED watches enjoyed early commercial success thanks to excellent quality, it was short lived due to poor battery life. LEDs were replaced with LCD watches for a short time, but these could not compete because of styling issues, excessive makes and models, and price points. The watches were manufactured in Dallas and then Lubbock, Texas. In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single-chip speech synthesizer, and incorporated it in a product called Speak & Spell. Several spin-offs, such as the Speak & Read and Speak & Math, were introduced soon thereafter.