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Paul and Linda at dinner before going to the ATC's revival of the American Tribal Love Rock Musical "Hair" in Tucson, December, 2008. Forty years earlier in 1968 these two "flower children" saw "Hair" in San Francisco while they were dating.
Biography
Paul R. Prazak (MSEE '73) is Director of University & Community Relations at Texas Instruments-Tucson. TI helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics with Analog and Embedded Processing technologies that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun.
In his current position, Prazak serves as the primary contact between TI and the University of Arizona with responsibility for building strong relationships to ensure positive business impact. He also provides technical support on college research programs and university relations throughout the US of interest to the High-Performance Analog (HPA) business. Further, he is the principle contact for many TI-Tucson community programs including K-12 outreach & United Way. Prior to assuming his current position in July, 2007, Prazak served as Director of the High-Speed Business where he was responsible for the product definition, design, development & marketing of high-speed mixed-signal semiconductor products for applications as diverse as medical imaging, copiers, and the emerging market of digital radio. Previously he served as vice-president of the High-Speed Division of Burr-Brown Corporation which was acquired by Texas Instruments in August, 2000 in the largest purchase in the history of the semiconductor industry (stock deal worth $7.6B). Prior to this position Prazak served in an number of roles within Burr-Brown including vice-president of the Data Division from 1995-1997, vice-president of Monolith Technologies Corporation, a subsidiary of Burr-Brown, from 1991-1995, director of Component Marketing from 1988-1991, director of the Data Division from 1985-1987, manager of Data Converter Design from 1982-1985, design group manager, Data Converters, from 1978-1982 and design engineer from 1973-1978.
Prazak was the keynote speaker at the 1989 Bipolar Circuits & Technology Meeting in Minneapolis, the keynote speaker at the 1989 University of Arizona Annual Engineers' Breakfast, and he has presented numerous papers in the area of high-accuracy analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters. He has 3 United States patents and more than 25 published articles, he has been a senior member of the IEEE for more than 27 years and he is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff - Emeritus at TI. He received the Sydney S. Woods Alumni Service Award from the University of Arizona Alumni Association and the College of Engineering in November, 2007, as well as the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering in December, 2007.
Paul enjoys cycling (road bike) through Saguaro National Park & along Old Spanish Trail, photography, and taking long walks with Linda, his wife of 38 years. They live on the east side of Tucson in the 43 year old adobe block home that they renovated together a few years ago.
Please contact Alonso Minjarez at 520-621-6171 or by e-mail at alonsom@ece.arizona.edu for more information on how you can have your very own alumni profile.