Cecil Howard Green (August 6, 1900 – April 11, 2003) was a British-born American

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

, electrical engineer, and electronics manufacturing executive, who trained at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He was a cofounder of

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

. He and his wife Ida Green were

philanthropists Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

who helped found the

University of Texas at Dallas The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD or UT Dallas) is a public research university in Richardson, Texas. It is one of the largest public universities in the Dallas area and the northernmost institution of the University of Texas system. It wa ...

, Green College at the

St. Mark's School of Texas The St. Mark's School of Texas is a nonsectarian preparatory day school for boys in grades 1–12 in Dallas, Texas, United States, accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest. History St. Mark's traces its origins to the T ...

, and Green College at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. They were also major contributors to the

Cecil H. Green Library The Cecil H. Green Library (commonly known as Green Library) is the main library on the Stanford University campus and is part of the SUL system. It is named for Cecil H. Green. Green Library houses 4 million volumes, most of which are relate ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, the Cecil H. & Ida Green Graduate and Professional Center at the

Colorado School of Mines The Colorado School of Mines, informally called Mines, is a public research university in Golden, Colorado, founded in 1874. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, and mathematics, with a focus on ener ...

, the Cecil H. & Ida Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the

University of California San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, the Cecil & Ida Green Building for earth sciences at MIT (designed by

I.M. Pei Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...

), and the Cecil and Ida Green Tower (the headquarters of the international

Society of Exploration Geophysicists The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) is a learned society dedicated to promoting the science and education of exploration geophysics in particular and geophysics in general. The Society fosters the expert and ethical practice of geophysi ...

in Tulsa, OK).

Biography

Born in Whitefield,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, in 1900, Green and his family migrated to

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, where he witnessed the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

. The family moved to

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, Canada, where Green attended

UBC The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...

for two years before transferring to the

, earning both a bachelor's and master's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1924. Green met Ida Flansburgh in 1923 while working on his master's thesis at the

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Research Center in

Schenectady, New York Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

. They were married for 60 years, until her death in 1986. 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. GSI began to manufacture a broader range of electronics equipment and instruments during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, 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. Green served as vice president (1941–1951), president (1951–1955) and chairman of GSI (1955–1959). He also served as vice president and director of Texas Instruments and in 1976 was named honorary director of the company. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1970. In 1978, he was given the inaugural

Maurice Ewing Medal Two international geophysical societies offer awards each year which are named in honor of Maurice Ewing; these are the American Geophysical Union and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists: __TOC__ AGU Ewing Medal The Maurice Ewing Medal is awa ...

of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, its highest award. In 1979 Green and his wife were awarded the

Public Welfare Medal The Public Welfare Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "in recognition of distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare." It is the most prestigious honor conferred by the academy. First awar ...

from the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. In 1985, Green received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

. Cecil Howard Green died in 2003 at the age of 102.

Philanthropy

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 an

honorary knighthood In the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories, personal bravery, achievement, or service are rewarded with honours. The honours system consists of three types of award: *Honours are used to recognise merit in terms of achievement a ...

in 1991 (at age 91) by Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

. One gift was the founding of the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green branch of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

Systemwide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). This branch is located at the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for oceanography, ocean and Earth science research ...

. It was because of Green's gift that

Green College, Oxford Green Templeton College (GTC) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. The college is located on the previous Green College site on Woodstock Road next to the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter in North Oxford and ...

was founded in 1979. Green College merged with Templeton College in 2008 to become

Green Templeton College Green Templeton College (GTC) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. The college is located on the previous Green College site on Woodstock Road next to the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter in North Oxford and ...

, on the site of what was previously Green College. Some of Green's philanthropy at the

(UBC) was encouraged by William Carleton Gibson, a

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

. Both Gibson and Green referred to Gibson as "Cecil Green's most expensive friend" due to his encouragement to fund the Cecil and Ida Green Visiting Professorship and

Green College, University of British Columbia Green College is a centre for interdisciplinary scholarship and a community of scholars at the University of British Columbia founded by Cecil Howard Green and Ida Green. The college consists of a residential community of nearly 100 graduate stu ...

. In 1998, the UBC Alumni Association gave Green and Gibson alumni "Lifetime Achievement Awards" in recognition of their support for the University.This issue of UBC Reports
is also online in PDF form.This issue of UBC Reports
is also online in PDF form.

References

External links

Cecil Green's trips to Arabia, 1939 & 1978Cecil H. Green: An Oral History
Stanford Historical Society, 1989 {{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Cecil Howard 1900 births 1906 San Francisco earthquake survivors 2003 deaths American manufacturing businesspeople American energy industry businesspeople American centenarians American geophysicists British emigrants to the United States Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Men centenarians MIT School of Engineering alumni People from Whitefield, Greater Manchester University of Texas at Dallas Texas Instruments people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 20th-century American philanthropists

Biography

Philanthropy

See also

References

External links