Richard (Rich) Templeton is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Texas Instruments. He became chairman of the board in April 2008, and president and chief executive officer in May 2004. He has served on the company’s board of directors since July 2003.
From April 2000 through April 2004, Templeton was chief operating officer of TI. He was executive vice president of the company and president of TI’s Semiconductor business from June 1996 through April 2004. In these roles, Templeton is credited with helping to define and execute TI’s strategy to focus on semiconductors for signal processing. Operationally, he guided the company during this transformation.
As CEO, he continued to reshape the company, focusing resources on growth opportunities in TI’s core businesses of Analog and Embedded Processing. His strategic actions included the major acquisition of National Semiconductor and the successful wind down of the company’s wireless operations, which enabled resources to be more fully focused on areas of long-term return. Templeton has led TI to become the global leader in analog integrated circuits, while still maintaining the company’s strengths in embedded systems and digital signal processing.
Throughout this process, he has maintained the company’s strategic investments in RD and manufacturing, while expanding the size of the sales and applications engineering team to better serve TI customers. Within the manufacturing arena, he oversaw the opportune purchases of capacity and equipment that have positioned the company for future growth, while allowing its capital spending levels to decline compared with historical levels. Under his leadership, TI has emerged stronger, with better technological and product positions in both its core businesses.
Templeton joined the company in 1980 after earning a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering from Union College in New York. He spent his operational career in the company’s Semiconductor business, beginning in sales and eventually becoming president of the entire business.
He topped the list of Institutional Investor’s Best Semiconductor CEOs in America for several years, most recently for 2015.
In addition to his TI duties, Templeton has focused much of his external energies on public issues and initiatives that advance the high-tech industry, technological innovation and education, particularly STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education. Under his leadership, TI and the TI Foundation have invested $150 million over the last five years to strengthen global education programs, including K-12 STEM teaching and student achievement. In the U.S., these efforts are especially directed toward increasing skills among under-resourced communities and under-represented minority students and girls. The industry has taken note of Templeton’s commitment and passion in this area. In 2012, the Semiconductor Industry Association awarded him its highest honor, citing his service as a “vigorous advocate for STEM education and longtime champion of research and innovation.”
Templeton currently serves on the board of the Semiconductor Industry Association, the board of directors of Catalyst, and the board of trustees of Southern Methodist University and Southwestern Medical Foundation. He is a member of the Business Roundtable and the Dallas CEO Roundtable. In addition, he has personally led the company’s United Way campaign for many years, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of donations to a variety of charitable organizations, and he served as chair of the 2012-2013 United Way of Metropolitan Dallas campaign.
Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) is an American electronics company that designs and makes semiconductors, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally.[5] Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, TI is the third largest manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide[6] after Intel and Samsung, the second largest supplier of chips for cellular handsets after Qualcomm, and the largest producer of digital signal processors (DSPs) and analog semiconductors, among a wide range of other semiconductor products,[7] including calculators, microcontrollers and multi-core processors. Texas Instruments is among the Top 20 Semiconductor producing companies in the world.
Texas Instruments was founded in 1951.[8] It emerged after a reorganization of Geophysical Service, a company that manufactured equipment for use in the seismic industry as well as defense electronics. TI began research in transistors in the early 1950s and produced the world's first commercial silicon transistor. In 1954, Texas Instruments designed and manufactured the first transistor radio and Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TI's Central Research Labs. The company produced the first integrated circuit-based computer for the U.S. Air Force in 1961. TI researched infrared technology in the late 1950s and later made radar systems as well as guidance and control systems for both missiles and bombs. The hand-held calculator was introduced to the world by TI in 1967.
