Dixie Garr

Garr was born in Dubach, Louisiana.[1] She was the youngest of her eight brothers and sisters, and graduated top of her class.[1] She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in computer science from Grambling State University in 1975.[2][3][4] During her college degree she interned at General Motors.[5] She was a graduate student at University of California, Los Angeles, where she worked as a Hughes Aircraft Company Fellow.[5] She earned a PhD in computer science and engineering, before joining Hughes Aircraft Company as an engineer.[5]

Garr moved to Texas Instruments in 1981.[2]

Garr worked at TI for almost twenty years. She held several leadership positions at TI, including advanced development manager, manager of the Information Technology group and manager of digital imaging.[2] She was the first African-American Level 3 Director of software engineering at TI. At TI Garr launched a minority leadership program that included guest speakers, a sponsorship scheme and professional development for people from minoritised backgrounds.[6] In 1997 Garr was named the "Black Engineer of the Year in Industry" by the council of engineering deans at historically black colleges and universities.[6] She attended the Stanford University Executive Program.[6] Garr returned to TI to lead the engineering teams working on programmes in defence and communications.[1]

In 1998 Garr was headhunted by Cisco Systems.[1][7][8] At Cisco Garr led teams that looked after customer satisfaction and corporate quality.[9]