Cecil Howard Green | |
|---|---|
 Cecil Green (mid 1980s) | |
| Born | (1900-08-06)August 6, 1900 |
| Died | April 11, 2003(2003-04-11) (aged 102) |
| Education | University of British Columbia Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BSE,ME) |
| Known for |
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| Spouse | Ida Green |
| Awards | Public Welfare Medal Revelle Medal[1] |
Cecil Howard GreenKBE (August 6, 1900 – April 11, 2003) was a British-born Americangeophysicist, electrical engineer, and electronics manufacturing executive, who trained at theUniversity of British Columbia and theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.
He was a cofounder ofTexas Instruments. He and his wife Ida Green werephilanthropists who helped found theUniversity of Texas at Dallas,Green College at theUniversity of British Columbia,St. Mark's School of Texas, andGreen College at theUniversity of Oxford. They were also major contributors to theCecil H. Green Library andGreen Earth Sciences atStanford University, the Cecil H. & Ida Green Graduate and Professional Center at theColorado School of Mines, the Cecil H. & Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at theUniversity of California San Diego, theCecil & Ida Green Building for earth sciences at MIT (designed byI.M. Pei), and the Cecil and Ida Green Tower (the headquarters of the internationalSociety of Exploration Geophysicists in Tulsa, OK).[2]
Born inWhitefield,England, in 1900, Green and his family migrated toToronto, Ontario,Canada andSan Francisco,United States, where he witnessed the1906 San Francisco earthquake. The family moved toVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where Green attendedUBC for two years before transferring to theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, earning both a bachelor's and master's degree inelectrical engineering in 1924.[3][4][5]
Green met Ida Flansburgh in 1923 while working on his master's thesis at theGeneral Electric Research Center inSchenectady, New York. They were married for 60 years, until her death in 1986.[6]
In 1941, Green and his partners J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott and H.B. Peacock bought Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI), primarily a petroleum exploration company.[6] GSI began to manufacture a broader range of electronics equipment and instruments duringWorld War II, including anti-submarine sonar detectors. In 1951 GSI spun off Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) to pursue the manufacture of a broader range of electronics equipment and instruments, while GSI, now as a wholly owned subsidiary of TI, continued to focus solely on oil exploration services.[6]
Green was vice president (1941–1951), president (1951–1955) and chairman of GSI (1955–1959). He was vice president and a director of Texas Instruments and in 1976 was named an honorary director of the company. He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1970.[7]In 1978, he was given the inauguralMaurice Ewing Medal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, its highest award.In 1979 Green and his wife were awarded thePublic Welfare Medal from theNational Academy of Sciences.[8] In 1985, Green received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[9]
Cecil Howard Green died in 2003 at the age of 102.[10]
The growth of TI made Green an enormously wealthy man, and he and Ida quickly set about giving his wealth away. The Greens' philanthropic efforts totalled over $200 million, and most of this money was given to education and medicine. He was given anhonorary knighthood in 1991 (at age 91) by QueenElizabeth II.
One gift was the founding of the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green branch of theUniversity of California Systemwide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). This branch is located at theScripps Institution of Oceanography.[11]
It was because of Green's gift thatGreen College, Oxford was founded in 1979. Green College merged withTempleton College in 2008 to becomeGreen Templeton College, on the site of what was previously Green College.
Some of Green's philanthropy at theUniversity of British Columbia (UBC) was encouraged byWilliam Carleton Gibson, aneurologist inVictoria, British Columbia,Canada. Both Gibson and Green referred to Gibson as "Cecil Green's most expensive friend" due to his encouragement to fund theCecil and Ida Green Visiting Professorship andGreen College, University of British Columbia. In 1998, the UBC Alumni Association gave Green and Gibson alumni "Lifetime Achievement Awards" in recognition of their support for the university.[12][13]
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