This policy will be revised when needed and reviewed in detail at least annually by the TIAA Administrator or a TIAA volunteer for consistency between policy and current practice.
Overview
The TIAA In Memoriam efforts began in 2009 when it was recognized that TIAA wanted to honor former TIers whenever we learned of a recent death. This effort is supported by TIAA Admin, members from the Communications Committee, and other volunteers. The information about their friends and former co-workers is important to exTIers and this subject generates more communication to the TIAA office than any other single item. This information is obtained by various means:
- Automatic notification of any obituary containing the phrase “Texas Instruments” in the Keyword box,
- Former TIers and TIAA members who notify the TIAA Admin of a death,
- U.S. Postal mail sent to a former TIer that is returned to the TIAA office marked “Deceased“, and
- The periodic update of info from TI.
Automatic notification of deceased TI Retirees and former TIers
An email notification of any obituary containing “Texas Instruments” is sent to the TIAA Admin on the day of publication. TIAA is registered with legacy.com to automatically perform this service. It searches obituaries from more than 1,500 North American newspapers and 900 funeral homes in order to provide the most accurate and timely obituary information available. The newspaper obituary information can be searched for a particular name dating back to February, 2001.
Deceased TI Retirees and former TIers
When TIAA learns about the death of a former TIer, the following steps are followed:
- The death is verified by comparing the complete name and date of birth from our database with the complete name and date of birth on the obituary.
- The Admin copies the obit info to the Content > Add Content > Obituary screen on our website and adds the DOD, City, and State on the form along with a picture of the deceased (if any). The Admin also makes slight corrections in the obit because a newspaper rendition may hyphenate words because of space considerations and our website doesn't need to do that, typos, etc. Drupal will catch most of these with it's spell check feature before loading the form to the website. It is often easier to read the obit if broken into sections rather than just one paragraph; i.e., background info, work info, survivors info, etc. If there is a picture, it must be converted to a size that is acceptable for our website — 800 x 600 pixels — before loading on our website. (There are many apps that will do that and TIAA uses AVS Image Converter which seems to work well.) If there is no picture and the obit states that the person served in the military, a flag icon is added to the obit on the TIAA website. Otherwise, another appropriate icon is included to the obit before saving it to the website.
- The date of death is entered by the TIAA Admin into the appropriate contact record on tialumni.org which automatically marks the contact as “deceased”. This is intented to prevent further electronic communications from being sent from TIAA. The TIAA Admin also adds the appropriate obit link. If the deceased is a current member, the email address and phone number are removed so that no inadvertent messages go to the deceased's home. If there is a surviving spouse, the TIAA Admin deletes the link from the deceased's record and marks the survivor with the "surviving spouse" designation. The name and badge number of the deceased is entered at the bottom of the surviving spouse's record for tracking info.
- However, If the death of a former TIer is reported to the TIAA office with no documentation, the Admin tries to verify the report by searching various websites:
- www.socialsecuritydeathrecords-search.com
- http://texasobits.tributes.com/search/obituaries (it may be modified to search for any or all states)
- http://www.legacy.com,
- https://www.findagrave.com/,
- https://premium.whitepages.com/home/,
- https://www.dobsearch.com/death-records/.
- If verified, the previous steps are followed to record the information.
About three times a year TIAA requests a data feed from TI's Human Resources which contains info on retirees as well as ex-employees who are being bridged until an appropriate date. This file may contain a death date (if applicable) and this info is automatically added to our online database as well. TIAA does not verify this information but does search for obits and posts them to the website.
Monthly Member Communications
Every edition of the eNews reminds readers of the members-only Recent Obituaries and In Memoriam submenus on the database. Information on these submenus can be sorted or searched by name, city, state, country and date of death. If a member wishes, they may leave a comment on the deceased's obituary page.
Here is an example of this area of the publication:
"In Memoriam
We add new names and obituaries of former TIers to our new website several times a week and currently have over 11,000 entries. To view the names, members can go to the In Memoriam submenu and click on Date to display the most recent deaths first. You can also sort the list by City or State or use the Find function to locate a particular person. Members can also go to Recent Obituaries to read the number we added in the past 30 days and others from preceding months (in date sequence). Please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of any obituary after viewing it.
Reporting a Death to TIAA and TI
If you need to report the death of a retired TIer, please call the TIAA office at 214-567-8444 with that info. Then, please call the TI Benefit Center at 888-660-1411, select option 1 and reply to a few questions like Tell me my choices and then Report a death and then Yes. You'll be connected to an operator to whom you can relay the death information along with the person's Social Security number."
Online Member Communications
TIAA members can find this up-to-date info on tialumni.org under Membership > In Memoriam :
"The following information is provided in remembrance of former TIers. This list is not all-encompassing, but great care has been taken to list the known information. This data comes from TI on a periodic basis, from family members and friends, and some is obtained by scanning newspaper obits. Please report any errors or omissions to TIAA by clicking here and submitting an email or by phoning our office at 214-567-8444. If obituaries are available, they may be viewed by clicking on the Obituary Link on the same line as the person's name. The data is first displayed in alphabetical order by the name of the deceased but a TIAA member may access this list via several methods:
- Enter the former TIers first name or last name or both in the Name box and click on Apply, or
- Click on Date to sort by date of death so the most recent deaths are listed first, or
- Click on the appropriate alphabetical tab to list those whose last name begins with that letter, or
- Click on City to sort by the last known city for these former TIers, or
- Click on Country and then State to sort by the last known state for these former TIers."
Updated by Ronnie Brandenburg and Jessica Stewert on June 2, 2019.
