Green, Cecil Howard

(b. 6 August 1900 in Manchester, England; d. 12 April 2003 in La Jolla, California), engineer, geophysicist, businessman, cofounder of the company Texas Instruments Inc., and renowned international educational and medical philanthropist.

Green, the only child of Charles Henry Green and Maggie (Howard) Green, was born in Manchester, England, where he lived for only a short time. His father, a trained maintenance electrician, and his mother, a homemaker, immigrated to Canada when he was an infant. His parents then took him to San Francisco, California, where he and his mother lived with relatives while his father traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, to seek work. Green remembered vividly the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. He later reflected that his experience of this earthquake was the first lesson that played a part in his future career. Shortly after the earthquake, Green and his mother traveled to Vancouver to join his father, and the family finally settled there. In 1914 Green attended King Edward High School in Vancouver, graduating in 1918. While he was in high school, he worked at odd jobs in auto mechanic shops, at a shipyard, and delivering newspapers. After high school he matriculated at the University of British Columbia as an art major but soon decided to become an engineer. A professor at the university encouraged him to pursue studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, so during his third year of college he transferred to that school and received both his BS (1923) and MS (1924) in electrical engineering there.

Green moved to Schenectady, New York, in 1924, where he joined the General Electric Research Center and began his engineering career specializing in designing steam turbine generators. There he met Ida Mabelle Flansburgh, whom he married on 6 February 1926, forming an unusually strong and generous partnership. They were married for sixty years, until her death from leukemia in 1986. The couple had no children. Green and his wife started traveling in 1926, partly out of the necessity to find engineering employment but also to satisfy his desire to explore. They crossed the country five times, making their home in auto camps and tents. Green tried a number of engineering jobs, including a position at Raytheon Manufacturing Co., before moving to Geophysical Service Inc. Green then went to Palo Alto, California, and joined the Federal Telegraph Company.

In 1930 Green went to work for the newly formed Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI), an oil-exploration company in Oklahoma, which was among the first independent companies to perform seismic exploration for petroleum. Green accepted a job as chief of the GSI seismographic field crew in 1932 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1936. He continued to travel in the new job; while he worked on oil-exploration projects in small towns in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, he and his wife often lived in cabins with little money and only a few possessions. After working several years as chief of the field crew and supervisor of various domestic operations for GSI, Green was given special overseas assignments.

Eventually, Green found his niche in the geophysical exploration business, which offered him a happy combination of technology and people. On 6 December 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor was bombed, opportunity knocked. Green joined with three partners—Eugene McDermott, J. Erik Jonsson, and H. Bates Peacock—to purchase the Dallas-based Geophysical Service Inc. Green did not have the cash for his share of the $300,000 purchase, but he put up personal property as collateral, and his decision paid off. At the outbreak of World War II, GSI branched into the production of submarine-detection devices for the U.S. military. Under Green’s leadership, GSI became a geophysical exploration service leader. He also played an important role as partners introduced electronics production into the business, which transformed the Dallas geophysical company into an electronic powerhouse that would create important technological developments that changed the world.

In 1951 the company’s name (GSI) was changed to Texas Instruments (TI); the new company became one of North America’s largest and most important electronic groups, with GSI as a subsidiary. TI is credited with the invention of the integrated circuit—the semiconductor device that made possible the microelectronics revolution and the first pocket-sized transistor radio. By the early 2000s, TI was a leading designer and supplier of digital-signal-processing and analog technologies that have driven the Internet age and was a growing $8.4-billion company based in Dallas with more than thirty-four thousand employees worldwide.

During the 1960s and onward TI brought Green great riches. Over the years he and his wife donated more than $200 million to educational and medical projects worldwide. By contributing to these projects Green aimed for a “multiplier effect,” so that their gifts could do the greatest amount of good for the most people. The beneficiaries of Green’s philanthropy are too many to list, as are the buildings that have his name. His favorite causes were science, medicine, education, and the arts. The pair endowed professorships, fellowships, and scholarships; established training programs; made countless awards to students; and assisted in the founding of two new colleges, the University of Texas at Dallas and Green College at the University of Oxford in England. Green and his wife, who found satisfaction and rewards from giving, became best known as two of the world’s greatest philanthropists.

Between 1930 and 1975 Green served as party chief, supervisor, vice president, president, chairman of the board, and honorary chairman of the board of GSI. As a cofounder of TI, he acted as vice president, president, member of the board, and honorary director of the board between 1941 and his death. Green had a long affiliation with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute after 1959 and served as an honorary trustee and honorary member. He became a member of the Scripps Clinic Board of Trustees in 1969, and in 1975 Green Hospital of Scripps Clinic was named in honor of the Greens.

Not surprisingly, Green was celebrated widely for his generosity. He received more than a dozen honorary degrees and many awards, medals, and tributes from academic institutions, professional and civic organizations, and the business community. Among the honors was the 1978 National Academy of Sciences gala “An International Tribute to Cecil and Ida Green.” In 1988 Green was named Philanthropist of the Year in San Diego, California. Two years later he became the first U.S. citizen to be named an honorary member of the Chinese Geophysical Society by the Republic of China. In 1994 he was again named Philanthropist of the Year, this time by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. In 1991 he was appointed Honorary Knight of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, in recognition of his life’s work.

Good-natured and of generous impulses, Green was devoted to education and the betterment of humankind. His major indulgence was traveling, which he did with his wife or alone after she died. Green himself died at the Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, of pneumonia at age 102 years. He was buried next to his wife in Greenwood Memorial Park, San Diego, California.

Tom Engibous, president and CEO of TI (1996–2004), stated that Green’s leadership abilities had helped to shape the very foundation of the company, with his genuine respect for people, business ethics, and strong belief in philanthropy. Green left a legacy of compassion, keen intellect, and generosity at the nation’s scientific, biomedical, and educational institutions.

Biographical information is in Robert R. Shrock, Cecil and Ida Green: Philanthropists Extraordinary (1989). See also Michael Kernan, “The Greening of Humanities,” Washington Post (11 Nov. 1978), and “Tribute to Cecil Green,” Leading Edge 23 (Apr. 2004): 330–351. Obituaries are in the San Diego Union-Tribune (13 Apr. 2003), the Dallas Morning News, and the New York Times (both 15 Apr. 2003).

Hope E. Young