Stafford Convention Centre was the venue for the 28th annual TI/TIHAA BBQ.

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Texas Instruments, along with assistance from the TI Houston Alumni Association (TIHAA), once again sponsored this annual event to recognize the contribution of TI Retirees to the success of TI. Some of the 153 retirees in attendance this year were affected by Hurricane Harvey a few weeks earlier, which devastated large portions of the Houston area with up to 50 inches of rain over a 3-day period. Those who attended were treated to a very good BBQ dinner with all the trimmings. This year, we changed the time to Saturday at 2:00 PM in order to accommodate those who come long distances, or don't like to drive at night.

As folks entered the Stafford Centre, they

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were signed in by our volunteers and given a ticket for the gift card raffle that was to take place later in the day. They entered the room and had an opportunity to join or renew their TIHAA membership, and learn about upcoming day trips or the Christmas Party. They were able to pick up their drinks and find a seat to their liking and socialize with all their friends.

To get things started with the formal program, Mary Brown,

Peter Ehlig.

Vice President of the TIHAA introduced our TIHAA President Jean Houston to the audience. Mary said that Jean began her career at TI in 1970 and worked in many areas and positions. When she retired in 2013, she was in Planning for HFAB, where she planned the final wafer lot start at the TI-Stafford site. She joined the TI Retiree Club in 2008, and served as Programs Chairperson, Treasurer and is now President of the TI Houston Alumni Association.

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Jean Houston then came to the podium and introduced the Founding Members of the TI Retiree Club who were in attendance. Jean highlighted some of the various activities of the TIHAA and encouraged those who were not members to join today, and reminded current members to renew for 2018.

Mary Brown then came to tell of the upcoming day trips she has planned for the rest of 2017. She then introduced our Keynote Speaker, Peter Ehlig to the audience. Peter joined TI in 1977, working on mini-computer operating systems. In 1983, he joined the DSP group to help migrate modem chip design from analog signal processing to digital signal processing. Peter has worked in DSP Applications (Modem, Military & HDD), Architecture (C2x & C5x), and custom DSP development (cDSP). He is currently with the C2000 team and works on safety features for our devices. Peter holds the title of TI Fellow Emeritus.

Peter started his presentation by showing some charts to compare TI's stock performance against some of our current competitors. TI has consistently outperformed them. He gave some insight into why that was so. He then went into the remainder of his presentation to answer the question: "Why is TI Doing Well?" He identified a list of non productive actions, which TI is not doing. Retirees in attendance were pleased to see that one of the possible causes listed was: "Because TI builds upon the foundation of the amazing work of those that worked here before us." Peter received an appreciative round of applause from attendees.

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Thomas Johnson, came and offered prayer for our gathering. This year we began a new effort to allow those with mobility problems, that might need assistance getting their food, to have someone get their food for them before the general attendance was released to get in line. This effort went smoothly and those attendees were provided with their full meal early.

Afterwards, the rest of the attendees were released and got in line for a delicious meal, compliments of Texas Instruments. After everyone was finished eating, we held a raffle for 4 gift cards and the table ornaments.

Donna Manderscheid.

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A person at each table won the table ornament.

We hope to see you all next year at the 2018 TI BBQ Event.

The gift card prize winners were:

Tom Croissant Best Buy Gift Card.

Jean Dixon iTunes Gift Card.

Gwen Gallien Panera Gift Card.

Isabel Rangel Cracker Barrel Gift Card.