14 Facts About Ray Zinn

Raymond D "Ray" Zinn was born on in El Centro, California on September 24,1937 and is an inventor, entrepreneur and author.

The eldest of 11 children, including six sisters and four brothers, Zinn was raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a strong work ethic was instilled at an early age by his parents.

Ray Zinn had a driver's license at 13 to chauffeur his siblings in a Ford pickup and work with water management officials in the dead of night to assure the family ranch received their allocation.

Ray Zinn's father was giving his son a lesson about what it meant to cut short his education.

Ray Zinn graduated from Brigham Young University in 1960 with a BS in Industrial Management, and an MS in Business Administration from San Jose State University in 1968.

Later, Ray Zinn became interested in semiconductors through his father-in-law, who worked at Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation and joined the company as an engineer in 1963.

Ray Zinn left Fairchild in 1968 and subsequently held various executive management positions at several semiconductor-related companies, including Teledyne, Inc, Nortek Inc and Electromask TRE.

Ray Zinn resisted turning control of Micrel over to another CEO.

Ray Zinn established a unique corporate culture at Micrel, which included unusual guidelines such as his "no swearing" policy.

Ray Zinn was profiled in Sand Hill's leadership series because of the leadership ability demonstrated throughout his tenure as founder and CEO of Micrel.

In 2015, Ray Zinn wrote Tough Things First, in which he distilled his knowledge of leadership and management.

In 2018, Ray Zinn wrote Zen of Ray Zinn, in which he discusses the interrelationships of people, society, entrepreneurship, business, leadership and life.

Ray Zinn has been a vocal advocate of disengaging the technology industry from China.

Ray Zinn coined the phrase "Chinexit" to describe the act of moving business operations out of China.