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Jim Watson is Associate Vice President for Technology Development at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He is formerly Chairman of STARTech Early Ventures, a for-profit high-tech incubator/accelerator. He has also served as interim chairman/CEO of several of STARTech’s portfolio companies as they seek venture capital. He currently is an advisor to the Board of Reata Pharmaceutical Inc., a unique biotech company.
Mr. Watson was with Texas Instruments for 34 years, serving as a vice president for nearly half of that time. He spent 11 years in Sherman, Texas and served as Plant Manager from 1973 to 1977 and in a similar role in Midland, Texas from 1982 to 1986. In addition to his operations responsibilities, he was World-wide Manager of Supply and Logistics for TI. In this role he had oversight for over $3B of annual expenditures for materials, services and equipment.
Jim formally retired from TI in 1994 to become President of TwinStar Semiconductor Inc., a memory chip manufacturing joint venture for TI and Hitachi. He led a combined TI and Hitachi team as they designed and built a $500M manufacturing facility in Richardson, Texas. TwinStar was sold to Micron Semiconductor Inc. in 1998.
In addition to these business responsibilities, he also serves on numerous boards and committees in the Plano and North Dallas area. Currently Jim is on the advisory boards for the Deans of Engineering at UT Dallas, UT Arlington, University of North Texas and SMU.
Jim has a BS and MS in Engineering from Iowa State University. He was awarded the Marston Medal, the highest award given by the University for excellence in engineering. He is married, the father of three children, and lives in Plano, Texas.
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