Speech by Tom Engibous, President of Texas Instruments.
Re: the need for an increase in the annual cap on H-1B visas.
Date: June 1, 1999.
Source: Texas Instruments. This document was created by Tech Law Journal by scanning a fax copy of the speech.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Kilby Center at Texas Instruments.

We're glad to host Senator Gramm and our other distinguished guests today to talk about an issue that's vital to our business and critical to our local and national economy.

The issue is our workforce; and high tech is dependent on highly skilled professionals to continue the development of technology, which in turn fuels economic growth.

You're standing in the lobby of the most technologically advanced semiconductor research facility in the world.

It contains enough space to fit 13 football fields, purifies enough super-clean de-ionized water to fill 30 swimming pools everyday (24 hours) and uses enough compressed air to fill more than 2,200 party balloons every minute.

Engineers - and I am one of them - get a kick out of these kinds of statistics.

But the fact is, this building is nothing without people to power it - and that's what we're here to talk about today.

It's almost become a cliche to say, "people are our most valuable asset."

For a semiconductor company it is an understatement.

Think about a semiconductor chip for a minute.

It is made from silicon, which comes from sand, yet a completed chip can sell for several hundred dollars.

The chip's value comes not from sand, but from the inspiration of the design engineer who conceives it, the ingenuity of the process engineer who develops a cost effective production process and the skill of the technician who makes the product a reality.

TI is focusing its business on the most dynamic segments of the semiconductor industry - digital signal processing or DSPs and analog.

Last year TI's DSP business grew 29 percent, three times faster than the market overall.

We wouldn't have this success without our TI people.

But at a time when we need skilled employees more than ever, we're having difficult time finding enough of them.

We're trying everything.

You may have noticed the brand new Ford Explorer out front.

We've had a program in place for some time offering our employees cash bonuses for referring technical job candidates to TI.

Now in addition to receiving the cash, the employees will be entered in a drawing for the Explorer.

Is this an attention grabber?

You bet it is!

But it's one more way we're trying to compete in the current hiring environment.

For years, TI has worked and invested millions of dollars in education to increase the number of American students entering technology fields.

That's everything from a Head Start program in South Dallas to funding elite engineering programs at some of this country's leading universities.

But that's not enough.

It takes years to move children through the education pipeline.

Our situation is urgent - our needs immediate.

The American Electronics Association says that 33 percent of U.S. Masters degrees and 47 percent of Doctors degrees in Electrical Engineering were conferred on foreign nationals.

In short, foreign nationals make up a large portion of our hiring pool.

Access to U.S. trained-foreign nationals is key to the health of our U.S.-based operations.

Last year TI joined other companies in asking Congress to raise the cap on the H-1B visa, to allow us to hire key skilled professionals coming from U.S. schools and from abroad.

Congress responded with a vital but limited increase.

This helped tremendously.

But now, months away from the end of the government fiscal year, we are within days of reaching the cap on the H-1B visa.

The barriers that threatened U.S. competitiveness are upon us once again.

We believe the answer to this problem is a fundamental reworking of the employment-based immigration system.

This includes both the temporary visa and permanent immigration programs.

As part of this effort we ask Congress to fight for American industry and raise the cap on the H-1B visa and support the global competitiveness of U.S. companies.

If we fall to do this, we are hurting no one but ourselves.

I am joined today by several distinguished guests, all of whom are concerned about the effect on American competitiveness by the shortages of skilled workers.

In the interest of time I will introduce our business speakers now and then return to introduce Senator Gramm.

Our first speaker will be Robert McTeer, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Bob serves as a member of the Federal Reserve's principal monetary policymaking committee.

The Bank of Dallas serves all of Texas, as well as Northern Louisiana and Southern New Mexico.

He will be followed by Krish Prabhu, the CEO of Alcatel USA, our neighbor in the Telecom Corridor, who can also testify to the workforce challenge facing businesses in this area.

Our third speaker is Gay Vencill, Director of Human Resources at Dallas Semiconductor, representing the American Electronics Association.

Dallas Semiconductor designs, manufactures and markets electronic chips and chip-based subsystems.

Now we'll begin with Mr. McTeer ...

Our final speaker today is Senator Phil Gramm.

Senator Gramm is the senior senator from Texas and chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

He also serves on two other key committees, Budget and Finance.

He is a champion for Texas and as such has taken and continues to take a leadership role in ensuring that Texas companies can hire the people they need to continue to grow.

It is indeed a pleasure to have Senator Gramm with us today.

Senator ...