Leonce John "L. J." Sevin, Jr. (August 28, [1] 1930 - September 12, 2015) [2] was described by a Dallas newspaper, when he died, as "Mostek co-founder, venture capitalist." He was also co-founder of Sevin Rosen Funds. [3]
Sevin co-founded Mostek when, in 1969, he left Texas Instruments; [4] he was the company's CEO for ten years. [2]
With Benjamin M. Rosen, he co-founded Sevin Rosen Funds in 1981. [5]
He served on the board at [2] [6]
He was born to Leonce [8] John Sevin, Sr. and Pauline Perkins Sevin [2] in Baton Rouge. [3] He fought in the Korean War and, with funding from the G. I. Bill, attended and graduated from Louisiana State University, [2] with a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering. [3] [9] [10]
In 1965, [3] while working for TI, he wrote a book, "Field Effect Transistors" [11] that was translated into seven languages. [2]
When Sevin died, his family included wife Jo Danna Sevin, daughters Christine Sevin Burke and Paula Sevin Webster Hayes, son Gordon Sevin, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. [3]
In 1982 daughter Joana Sevin "died in an automobile accident." [2]
Murphy James Foster was the 31st Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana, an office he held for two terms from 1892 to 1900. Foster supported the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, which effectively disfranchised the black majority, who were mostly Republicans. This led to Louisiana becoming a one-party Democratic state for several generations and excluding African Americans from the political system.
Mostek was a semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturer, founded in 1969 by L. J. Sevin, Louay E. Sharif, Richard L. Petritz and other ex-employees of Texas Instruments. Initially their products were manufactured in Worcester, Massachusetts in cooperation with Sprague Electric, however by 1974 most of its manufacturing was done in the Carrollton, Texas facility on Crosby Road. At its peak in the late 1970s, Mostek held an 85% market share of the dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) memory chip market worldwide, until being eclipsed by Japanese DRAM manufacturers who offered equivalent chips at lower prices by dumping memory on the market.
Theodore Judson Jemison, better known as T. J. Jemison, was the president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African-American religious organization. He oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the headquarters of his convention.
The Paul M. Hebert Law Center, often styled "LSU Law", is a public law school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is part of the Louisiana State University System and located on the main campus of Louisiana State University.
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Sevin Rosen Funds (SRF) is a Texas-based venture capital firm credited with pioneering the personal computing revolution in the 1980s and also venture investing in Dallas. It was established in 1981 by L. J. Sevin, a former Texas Instruments engineer, and Ben Rosen, and was one of the leading investors on the US West Coast.
Henry Luse Fuqua Sr., was an American government official and politician. A Democrat, he is most notable for his service as the 38th Governor of Louisiana from 1924 until his death in 1926.
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The early history of private equity relates to one of the major periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital experienced growth along parallel although interrelated tracks.
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George William Guess was mayor of Dallas, Texas (1866–1868).
Benjamin "Ben" M. Rosen is the former chairman and former acting chief executive officer of Compaq and a co-founder of Sevin Rosen Funds.
George A. Caldwell, sometimes known as Big George Caldwell, was a Louisiana building contractor and state official. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, he served as Superintendent for Construction at Louisiana State University, where he was known to "rake off 2 per cent of the cost of all building projects." Caldwell managed the construction of nine buildings on the campus as federal Public Works Administration (PWA) projects in Baton Rouge. These included the university library and the structures housing the dairying and physics departments.
John Landry “Buddy” Boudreaux was a big band and jazz musician in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He played saxophone and clarinet. Since 1934, he directed and played in a number of bands that have toured the southern United States and drawn nationally known performers to Baton Rouge. The State-Times newspaper called him “the city’s sound of big band.” His bands backed such artists as Andy Williams, Bernadette Peters, Doc Severinsen, Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Burt Bacharach, Johnny Mathis, The Four Tops, Bob Hope, George Burns and Joan Rivers. He opened shows for Tony Bennett, Tony Orlando, Louise Mandrell, The Beach Boys and Bill Cosby. He was co-author—with his barber, Michael T. Abadie—of “My Baton Rouge,” which in 1998 was declared the city's official song.
Arthur Taylor Prescott Sr. was a political scientist and educator who was the founding president of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. Most of his educational administrative career, however, was spent at his alma mater, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Jared Young Sanders Jr. was an American lawyer and politician who served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1934 to 1937 and again from 1941 to 1943. He was the son of Louisiana governor Jared Y. Sanders.