Harris Corporation
Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has approximately $7 billion of annual revenue. It is the largest private-sector employer in Brevard County, Florida (approximately 6,000). The company was the parent of Intersil (Harris Semiconductor). Most of the wireless start-ups in South Brevard County were founded and are staffed by former Harris Corporation engineers and technicians. The company's Digital Telephone Systems (DTS) division was sold to Teltronics.
Thomas Britton Harris IV
Harris graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in finance in 1980. He began his career at Texas Utilities, leaving to join Asea Brown Boveri. He was then named chief investment officer of Verizon Investment Management, Verizon Communications' employee benefit trust. He subsequently left Verizon to serve as the chief executive officer of Bridgewater Associates, at the time the largest hedge fund in the world. Harris spent only six months at Bridgewater due to a culture fit problem, however Ray Dalio, the firm's founder and chief executive following Harris' departure, noted that "Mr. Harris is a superstar, with an absolutely fantastic character. He's an industry leader." Following Bridgewater, Harris was appointed chief investment officer of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (Also known as TRS), Texas' pension plan for public teachers. During Harris' tenure at TRS, the value of their pension fund grew from $67 billion at the time of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, to $140 billion at the time of Harris' departure from the company in June 2017. On June 16, 2017, it was announced that Harris would be leaving his position at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas to become the new chief investment officer of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (Also known as UTIMCO), an investment management company that oversees the assets of two of the largest public universities in the United States: The University of Texas and Texas A&M University. Harris began as chief investment officer of UTIMCO on August 1, 2017.