Workplace recognition

9 Dallas-Fort Worth companies among best large employers in Texas, says Forbes

Just one local airline lands on this list.

Several local workplaces are working overtime toward success, and it's paying off. A new list from Forbes and Statista ranks nine Dallas-Fort Worth companies among the state’s best major employers, both those based in Texas and those with a significant presence here.

They are:

No. 7 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas
No. 8 Capital One (based in Richmond, Virginia; major corporate hub in Plano)
No. 16 University of Texas at Dallas
No. 17 Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas
No. 18 Lewisville ISD, based in Lewisville
No. 19 GM Financial, based in Fort Worth
No. 21 City of Plano
No. 22 Fidelity Investments (based in Boston; major corporate hub in Westlake)
No. 28 Jordan Health Services, based in Addison

To come up with their ranking, Forbes and Statista surveyed about 70,000 Americans working at employers in the U.S. with at least 500 employees each. The final list features 1,382 highly recommended employers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

NASA can be over the moon about its new ranking as Texas' No. 1 large employer. The space agency's $1.5 billion Johnson Space Center complex occupies more than 1,600 acres in Clear Lake. The site, home to the space agency’s mission control and astronaut training operations, employs roughly 3,000 NASA workers, along with thousands of NASA contractors. NASA’s headquarters is in Washington, D.C.

It’s estimated that Johnson Space Center contributed more than $4.7 billion to the Texas economy in 2018. On its career website, NASA cites several reasons to work at the federal agency. For instance, NASA says it offers “a range of challenging projects that will make a difference to society. You need only find the intersection between talent, passion, and opportunity.”

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, DFW's highest ranked employer, is no stranger to accolades. It landed at No. 9 on Forbes' list of the country’s best large employers in the country last spring.

“UT Southwestern has a dynamic culture of integrity, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration, and accountability that shapes the way we deliver on our mission of providing expert medical care, academic achievement, and transformative research,” Holly Crawford, executive vice president for business affairs at UT Southwestern, said in a news release then.

Here's the rest of the list of Texas' 30 best large employers, as determined by Forbes and Statista.

Houston area

No. 1 NASA (based in Washington, D.C.; Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake)
No. 2 University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
No. 3 Oceaneering International, based in Houston
No. 4 MD Anderson Cancer Center, based in Houston
No. 11 Bechtel (based in Reston, Virginia; major corporate hub in Houston)
No. 13 Clear Creek ISD, based in League City
No. 20 Air Liquide, based in Houston
No. 23 Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, based in Pearland
No. 25 Houston Methodist, based in Houston

San Antonio

No. 5 University of Texas at San Antonio
No. 9 H-E-B (based in San Antonio; more than 300 stores in Texas)
No. 12 University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Austin area

No. 14 Google (based in Mountain View, California; major corporate hub in Austin)
No. 29 Dell Technologies, based in Round Rock
No. 30 NXP Semiconductors (based in the Netherlands; major corporate hub in Austin)

Throughout Texas

No. 6 IKEA (based in Sweden; five stores in Texas)
No. 10 Costco (based in Issaquah, Washington; 35 stores in Texas)
No. 15 Hyatt (based in Chicago; hotels throughout Texas)
No. 24 Microsoft (based in Redmond, Washington; offices in Austin, Dallas, Friendswood, Frisco, Houston, San Antonio, and The Woodlands)
No. 26 Sherwin-Williams (based in Cleveland; more than 300 stores in Texas)

lists rankings

Death Penalty

Tarrant County man gets death for murder of convenience store owner

Tarrant County Sheriff's Office

Christopher Turner

A man received the death penalty for his 2020 cold-blooded execution of a convenience store owner.

According to a release from the office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Christopher Karon Turner, 48, to death on November 20 for executing convenience store owner Anwar Ali during a robbery. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorneys Charles Boulware and Allenna Bangs represented the state.

On March 27, 2020, at around 6:15 am, Turner, a convicted felon, wore a surgical mask and a glove and entered the Super Big Country Mart in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County south of Fort Worth. There, he held a gun to the back of Anwar Ali, the 62-year-old store owner, and walked him through the store.

Ali did everything Turner demanded, including opening the cash register to give him money. And yet Turner forced Ali into the bathroom and onto his knees, and shot him in the neck. Ali was discovered, dead in the bathroom, about an hour later.

Turner fled the store in Ali's Toyota minivan with the money from the register and Ali's wallet. In the van, he found more than $50,000 cash in a black bag. Over the next few days, Turner went on a shopping spree, buying cars, jewelry, drugs, clothes, and more. He and others used cash and a credit card that belonged to Ali.

Turner fled to Colorado where U.S. Marshals arrested him. On his body they found a firearm which was determined to be the murder weapon.

"This was a premeditated, cold-blooded murder," Boulware told the jury. "From the moment he was charged with this crime, he has tried to escape responsibility."

Bangs noted that before this trial began, Turner obtained the names of jurors and their telephone numbers, and gave them to an inmate charged with murder. At the trial on November 20, as Bangs addressed the jury, Turner tried to hold up a sign to the jury but was handcuffed by Sheriff's deputies who removed him from the courtroom, while he yelled out "she lied."

Ali came to the United States from Pakistan decades ago to pursue the American dream. Ali's son, Hussein, spoke in the courtroom after the death penalty was announced. "Thank you for giving us justice," Ali said. "I hope there are no more devils like this person."