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History Cecil and Ida Green: Benefactors and philanthropists
[Text taken from the booklet "An International Tribute to Cecil and Ida Green" held in Washington, D. C. in 1979]
Cecil Howard Green was born in Manchester,
England on August 6, 1900. He was the only
son of Charles Henry and Maggie (Howard) Green.
In 1902 the family sailed from Liverpool to North
America, settling in Sydney, Nova Scotia. During
the next several years, Cecil's father worked
hard to find his place in his adopted land,
and this resulted in an ever-westward migration
for the Green family. From Sydney they went to
Montreal, Toronto, and San Francisco where, as a
witness to the great earthquake of 1906, young
Cecil received his first lesson in geophysics.
Later in 1906, the Green family made a further
move to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Cecil's
father found work in the mineral industry as an
apprentice electrician.
Cecil attended Vancouver's public elementary schools and
then went on to King Edward High School. After graduating
in 1918, he enrolled in the University of British Columbia,
focusing his attention on science and engineering courses
with an eye to making electrical engineering his career. His
summers were spent working with his father as an electrician's
helper. Because of his interest in electrical engineering,
his chemistry professor, an M.I.T. graduate, suggested that
Cecil apply for admission to the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. His application accepted, Cecil entered
M.I.T. as a transfer student in 1921. Two years later he
graduated in the Class of 1923, receiving his Bachelor of
Science Degree in Electrical Engineering. He stayed on at
M.I.T. for another year, and in 1924, was awarded the Master
of Science Degree.
At M.I.T., the curriculum of the Cooperative Program
(Course VI-A) in Electrical Engineering required that
classroom and laboratory instruction be combined with
practical work in a participating industrial plant. Cecil
was assigned to the General Electric Company's Lynn,
Massachusetts, and Schenectady, New York, plants. It was in
Schenectady, while working on his thesis "No-load Flux
Distribution to Synchronous Machines," that he met Ida
Mabelle Flansburgh, a General Electric statistician.
When Cecil finished his studies in 1924, he returned to
Schenectady as a full-time employee in General Electric's
Turbine Generation Division in the Alternating Current
Engineering Department and as an instructor in advanced
engineering at GE's school.
Cecil and Ida were married on February 6, 1926.
Ida Green was born in Pittsburgh in 1903. She
and her younger brother, Frederick Louis,
were the children of Louis Wilford and Laura
(Bolton) Flansburgh. Shortly after Ida's birth,
the Flansburgh family moved to New York where
they spent several years living in the scenic
Adirondacks. Ida attended elementary and secondary
schools in Schenectady.
Soon after their marriage, Cecil and Ida moved to
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Cecil took a job as a
researcher in gaseous tube devices at the Raytheon Company. In
1928 he left Raytheon to work as a Production Engineer in
the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company in Jamaica Plain,
Massachusetts. A year later, he and Ida drove across the
country to Palo Alto, California, where Cecil accepted a
position as an engineer in the Electronics Department with
the Federal Telegraph Company (ITT). In 1930 he left Federal
Telegraph to join Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) in Maude,
Oklahoma as a Field Party Chief. However, shortly after
he arrived at GSI, the discovery of oil in the East Texas
oilfield eliminated the need for further exploration, and GSI
employees were encouraged to try and return temporarily to
their previous employments. Cecil returned to Palo Alto and
Federal Telegraph. A return trip East was made in 1931 when
the Electronics Laboratory of Federal Telegraph was relocated
in Newark, New Jersey, and Cecil became its Director. In 1932
Cecil and Ida were on the road again, this time to Dallas,
Texas, where Cecil responded to a call from Eugene McDermott
to rejoin GSI as a Field Party Chief. Later Cecil would become
one of the principals in reconstituting GSI and would spend
his entire professional life there.
Cecil's decision to return to GSI marked a turning point
in the lives of the Greens. There he met oilmen, J.C. Karcher
and John Erik Jonsson. In later years, Karcher withdrew
from the company, and Green, Jonsson, and McDermott would
become valued friends as well as astute and indispensable
business colleagues.
As GSI expanded, Cecil became a regional supervisor in
1936. In the late Thirties, however, with Hitler on the
march in Europe, war threatened foreign oil exploration and
GSI's parent company, the Coronado Petroleum Company, moved
towards acquisition by Standard Oil Company of Indiana, with
GSI as part of the transaction. Cecil and Ida risked their
life savings to join with Henry B. Peacock, McDermott and
Jonsson to buy GSI as partners in a reorganized company. The
papers were signed on December 6, 1941, with Cecil becoming
Vice President. Mr. Peacock withdrew after about one year,
leaving the triumvirate of Green, Jonsson and McDermott. Cecil
rose to President in 1950, became Chairman of the Board in
1955, and Honorary Chairman of the Board in 1959, a position
he held until 1975.
Cecil Green at the entrance to the Pinon Flat Geophysical Observatory, 1971.
During the next decade, GSI grew rapidly,
pioneering the use of the reflection seismograph
in the search for mineral resources. It became not
only a major geophysical exploration company, but
also developed a large electronics manufacturing
capability. Since electronics instrumentation
was urgently needed to help the U.S. war effort,
the owners of GSI established Texas Instruments
Incorporated in 1945, a company which later
became a giant in the electronics industry. Cecil
served as a Director of the Company from its
inception until 1975 when he became an Honorary
Director.
When the Greens settled in Dallas, Ida became
involved in a number of community activities. She
solicited major gifts for the United Fund,
helped raise financial support for the blind
and for a home for juvenile delinquents.
She enrolled in Southern Methodist University
and took an active part in the American
Association of University Women. Her work in this
organization included service as a Vice President
of the Dallas Branch and Implementation Chairman
for the study group on "Science: A Creative
Discipline." In later years, Ida became an
SMU trustee, and in 1973, she was awarded the
Mortar Board, the University's highest honor.
Her participation in civic affairs is impressive and
includes service on the Boards of the League of Women Voters,
The Dallas Children's Medical Center, the Dallas Symphony
Orchestra, and the Scripps Memorial Hospital of La Jolla,
California. She has been a member of the Women's Council of
Dallas County, the Texas League, the Women's Auxiliary of
the Dallas County Hospital District, Dallas Council of World
Affairs, Dallas Women's Club, Cadence Club, and the R.B. &
Cleo George Memorial Hospital of the Children's Medical
Center. She is a Past President of the Dallas Geological and
Geophysical Auxiliary and Honorary Member of the Mothers'
Club of St. Mark's School of Texas.
In 1977 Ida was awarded Honorary Doctor of Humanities
Degrees from Texas Christian University and Austin
College. She was also designated a Vice Admiral of the
Texas Navy.
Throughout their lives Cecil and Ida Green have
been acutely aware of the importance of education
in shaping their own destinies. Consequently, by
strengthening teaching and research capabilities
of several institutions, they have made it
possible for thousands of young people to pursue
their own educational goals and develop their
talents.
Ida and Cecil in the Galapagos Islands
The Green name is inscribed on buildings,
laboratories, libraries, theatres, rooms and
special facilities in Australia, Canada, England
and the United States. Their professorships,
lectureships, fellowships and scholarships have
benefited generations of students and educators
at all levels in fields which range across the
spectrum from science and medicine to social
sciences, humanities and the arts.
For further information on the Greens' philanthropy, please
click here.
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