Cree Inc. is an American multinational corporation based in Durham, North Carolina, and is a Fortune 500 company with $6.5 billion in revenue in 2012. Cree was founded by Dr. Chuck Swoboda, J.T. "Mac" McElroy, and Jim Bogard in 1990 as a manufacturer of LED semiconductors. It went public in 1995 and its shares are traded on the NASDAQ as CREE.