'Your responsibility exceeds your authority'

     It was the 1950s. Cecil Green was in Perth, Australia, and had been looking in vain for Hay Street - nobody had ever heard of it. He was confused. Then, as he continued to inquire, he listened to a lady refer to a snile crawling on her milebox. He was confused no longer. He vaulted right into the vernacular and asked her where High (Hay) Street was. He was properly directed.
     Thus the barrier of a common language was broken. Later that day, at the races, geophysicist Green and a companion were mumbling over two horses, with the respective names of Quick To Start and Sure To Finish. They were choosing the horses based strictly on nomenclature. Quite scientific. He and his companion were overheard. A lady in the next box said, "Surely you ahn't goin' to bet on those nags, ah you?" Well, they did. And the horses finished - flat-out last, and next to last.
     Their defeat notwithstanding, the nags' names - if not their luck - became a virtual omen for Green, a very unconfused, lightning-quick starter who has begun a number of things, finished a number of very important things, and who, as he nears 82, wryly smiles away the notion that it's all over.
     He is formally retired as chief of Geophysical Services Inc. and founding director of Texas Instruments - which is to say he's only an honorary director, and only an honorary member of its advisory council, and he only spends 10-15 hours a day promoting and supporting education in and out of geophysics while funding artistic and scientific efforts plus other civic ventures, along with counseling students, and - as his wife Ida says of the phoneaholic she's had for a husband for 56 years, "... continuing to keep AT&T's stock as high as it is." (Green's use of the telephone is such that one of his associates laments Bell having come up with the button system a few years ago. "Cecil has dialed so many numbers - he'd have his secretaries make a couple of calls and then start dialing one himself - that he probably could have won a belt in fingertip karate. It's fortunate he wasn't one of those explosive CEOs who poked you in the chest at cocktail parties.")

     But Green's life almost started with an explosion - he was five years old and serenely asleep in the security of his mother's room in San Francisco when the 1906 earthquake hit - prefacing, as he is fond of saying, "... my beginnings in seismology. I woke up that morning with plaster falling on my face. We lived in a three-story house on Jackson Street. My mother called for help so we could get the door open - the frame, the whole house, was twisted.
     "We finally made it out with whatever personal belongings we could carry and weren't allowed back in. Like thousands of others, we wound up in Golden Gate Park, living in a tent. We watched the whole city burn. It was a terrible thing. There was martial law. I can still remember a soldier breaking in a store window to get me a pair of shoes."

     Green and his family were English immigrants. Earlier, his father had gone to Vancouver, BC to find work, preparatory to the family's move there. He hadn't been gone long enough before the earthquake for them to have received word of his whereabouts, so there was no way to communicate that they were safe.
     The family set out for Vancouver, and finding a place to live the first day, met him by chance on Hastings Street on the second. (This was only one of numerous coincidences in the life of Cecil, who later on, as a young scientist, would make a number of transitions before he finally found himself. "The rolling stone adage doesn't always apply," he observes. "It depends on personality as much as opportunity.")
     Once united in Vancouver, the family began to feel a bit settled. They had first emigrated from Manchester to eastern Canada, then to San Francisco, finally to Vancouver. It was there that young Cecil began his prodigious education. He started in a one-room school, then advanced to another with four, and on to King Edward High School. The Vancouver School System placed demands on him which undoubtedly set his learning standards for life.
     "The system was tops. Tough, rigorous, always stimulating. I even had to pass an examination to be promoted out of grade school, never mind the provincial exam to complete high school."

     From there he went to the University of British Columbia. In his sophomore year a chemistry professor befriended him, and urged him to try for Massachusetts Institute of Technology where they offered a degree in electrical engineering - unavailable then at UBC. Green was admitted. "Though conditional, it said something about the standards of Vancouver. I had some makeup to do at MIT, but an excellent foundation had been laid."
     At MIT Green got his first taste of the industrial/educational cooperation he was later to seriously emulate. Part of his undergraduate and graduate work was done under the tutelage of General Electric engineers and scientists, in shops and laboratories in Lynn and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Schenectady, New York.
     And then, upon graduation in 1924, he began an oscillating odyssey of employment - the stone rolled, and no place seemed quite right for stopping. Green went from designing steam turbine generators for GE to making electronic rectifiers for the then-budding Raytheon, and on to running a vacuum tube lab with Charles V. Litton in Palo Alto. In between, the siren world of sales lured him - 1928 found him in Seattle being tempted by one of the first automobile turn-signal companies.
     "The man told me if I could sell one of those indicators to every car owner in the state of Washington, my commissions would add up to $10,000 a year. Quite a sum. But I knew it wasn't for me. Then I was interviewed by an insurance executive. He told me to forget it - that I'd be throwing my education away."
     But Green's integrity - later to become renowned in the world of geophysics and education - must have shown through. "The man offered to lend me $5,000 - he wanted me to stay in his city."

     Green didn't. Before long he found himself back on the east coast, working for GE in Boston as a production engineer in charge of Faradon condenser production. Then the west beckoned again, and he found himself with Litton at Palo Alto. This might have evolved into permanency, for Charles Litton at the time was likely the world's expert on glass-to-metal technology and was more than a casual inspiration to Green.
     "But his work schedule was horrible. He probably was the world's first workaholic. [Green, as it turned out, went on to become the second.] Litton came down to the lab in the afternoon and would stay until three or four in the morning - and me right next to him. I was learning so much it was irresistible."
     Then, one morning Litton decided they would knock off "early" (around 1 a.m.) and go have a beer. "University Avenue was deserted except for a woman in the distance, slowly approaching us. As she got nearer, my God, I was aghast. It was my wife. I sensed Ida was coming down to the lab to take me out by the ears. She walked up to us and lined out both of us. She bawled Charlie out as much as she did me."

     What Green did not know was how relentlessly Ida had been corresponding with the Roland Beers family - friends they had met at Raytheon, and how weary she was, as a young wife, of her husband's crazy work hours. Beers at this time (early 1930) was working for Geophysical Service Inc., in the then relatively untried field of reflection seismology. Soon, he convinced Green to join the new company as Party Chief. Thus, the rolling stone finally stopped.
     GSI had two great advantages - its sole purpose was to provide geophysical data exclusively for clients (vs. varying it, as some contractors did by doing seismic work for themselves as well, a practice which clients often frowned on for fear of double use of data) - also it had J. C. Karcher's successful experience with reflection profiling vs. refraction seismology, an innovation begun at Geophysical Research Corp. and which was then fast evolving to virtually supplant refraction profiling as the key tool of explorationists.

     But Green's traveling did not stop - it increased. Cecil and Ida began another odyssey, at first centering around the small hamlets of the 1930s in Oklahoma - Maud, Guthrie, Seminole, Stillwater, Prague, Perry, Medford, etc. The odyssey was in later years to take him, without Ida, to South America, the Middle East, Indonesia, Australia, and eventually both of them to industrial, education, and civic heights they never dreamed of. Part of it was a gypsy's life, only the gypsy's wife wasn't always able to go along. When she could, it was make-do, catch-as-catch-can, and grin and bear it - a veritable proving ground of love. (It is said of Cecil and Ida by their friends that the two are never apart, whether in the presence of one another or not.)
     This close, trusting relationship can easily be seen as having spilled over into Cecil's attitude toward people generally. It has made him, in his own view, what he is. And what he is is universally acknowledged - an international leader of the first rank in industry and education. He does not seem to be a particularly talkative person, or terribly outgoing until you hear him begin to use the words, "people," and "education."

     Then his eyes light up, and the stories, the anecdotes, the axioms, rush forth in a barely muted torrent - a panoply of experience filled with conviction that technology is worthless without people, that a company with a dozen leading edges won't make it unless it understands people, and that the most talented scientist, educator, or manager won't make a first-rate professional unless he understands people.
     "By understanding, I mean appreciation. I mean caring. This involves taking the time to learn what makes a man tick, to learn how to lead. You can't do that if you mentally pigeonhole a person. You have to follow his traits closely if you would direct them. I remember when I was asked to give the commencement address for a joint PhD graduating class of MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
     "My first reaction was, 'God - I can't tell those fellows anything about oceanography.' I chose people as my theme. I told the graduates, 'When you walk away from here, you'll be leaving with the best education you can get anywhere in the world. You might say you have the world by the tail. But you still must develop one all-important ability - being able to enlist the help of other people. You have to reach a state where other people want to help you, not because they have to.
     " 'This includes giving credit - not being niggling about it, even if you're in doubt. This will come back to you a hundred-fold. You have to remember that your reputation, good or bad, stems from what people say when you're not present, not what they tell you straight out. How you're able to inspire them is critical - to provide the motivation to be responsible.' That was my emphasis.
     "Also, we have a saying in our company - Your responsibility exceeds your authority. For example, if you're working with a colleague who is overseeing a task different from yours, and you see something going wrong with it, it's your responsibility to tell him, diplomatically. And he you, if that is the case. That's genuine teamwork. Think of how this applies when you're way back in a jungle somewhere, miles from nowhere. You're completely dependent on each other - you need that esprit de corps. Seismic exploration tends to bring that out - and any really good scientific endeavor should bring it out, whether it's in a jungle or a city lab."

     People - they were why Green stayed in geophysics. For him, people and technology represented an irresistible combination. "I was in electronics and production research with various companies before I got into geophysics. I soon decided that integrity rides at the highest levels in the exploration industry, where a man's word is his bond. It's a perfect combination of technology and people. And I'm convinced that the high demands of science breed integrity, and modesty as well. Show me a geologist, a geophysicist, any scientist who's brimming with ego and I'll show you a probable newcomer to the business. Mother Earth has a way of quickly showing you you're always the upstart."
     Though he has good reason for it, Green is hardly brimming with ego. In fact, he salutes his competitors. He's grateful for them.
     "One of my favorite events is the past presidents' meetings of SEG. Everybody gets up and says a few words - you can even tell bawdy stories if you like. But my favorite approach is to look around and see who among my competitors is present. And I thank them. I thank them for giving me such good competition. Without it you can't put your best foot forward. When you tell your employees, 'Hey - these fellows are going to beat us out of this deal,' they can relate to that. That's camaraderie - fighting the good fight."

     Conversely, Green is unfond of government meddling in business, petroleum or otherwise. Which is why he sees hope on the horizon for Margaret Thatcher's administration in Britain, with her emphasis on the private sector. His anglophilia aside (being a former British subject) he relates a conversation with Mrs. Thatcher during his recent visit to the House of Commons in London.
     "She mentioned an appointment that afternoon with the King of Saudi Arabia. I said we had been doing work there for over 40 years - that we had just celebrated that fact - and she said she understood that years ago Aramco outbid British Petroleum for that concession. I told her I hated to disagree, but that wasn't quite the case - that a friend, Lloyd Hamilton of Standard Oil of California successfully negotiated the deal for Caltex. The reason for his success was that the Saudi king didn't want a company in there partially owned by another government."
     That impressed Mrs. Thatcher - but no more than she impressed Green. "If they ever fire her we ought to hire her. But then, I said the same thing about Churchill."

     Green feels some concern regarding noncompetitive exploration efforts. "For example, in such a situation a company goes into an area, does some geophysics and geology, drills it, and if it gets x-number of dry holes the area is apt to be condemned. In a competitive environment the scenario is likely to be entirely different. Let's say "x" company drills a lease in Louisiana and comes up with dry holes. Eventually they let go of the lease. So maybe "y" company comes in, sniffing a fault in there that the other company didn't find, and they drill it. A well might come in. Maybe the other guys were drilling on the wrong side. So the status of the lease was changed."
     Though Green's words for government are far from positive, those on industry and its images are hardly uncritical. He cites the mixed bag of an unwitting comic opera staged not long ago in the US Senate. A geologist friend had been testifying before a committee on the exploration business. Slowly, carefully, the friend explained to the senators the difference between getting a producer vs. a dry hole, and the cost implications of each. It was a long, drawn-out session.
     After it was over, and the geologist was mixing with the solons out in the hall, one came up to him and said, "I really enjoyed your presentation. I got a lot out of it. In fact, I got so much out of it I'd like to tell you about it."
     "Why, that's fine," the geologist said. "Go ahead."
     "I'm surprised you haven't figured it out after all your years in the exploration business. I've figured it out in one day, just from what I've heard."
     "For God's sake, tell me."
     "It's simple. All the industry has to do is quit fooling around with dry holes and concentrate on producers."
     Green, appalled, asked his friend: "Was the guy drunk?"
     "No."
     "Was he serious?"
     "Yes."
     Green's point, like that of any careful observer following the petroleum industry for more than a few years, is why should such ignorance of the oil business still persist? It should have been cleared up long, long ago.
     "Now it looks like rationalization when we try to do it," Green says. "We should have taken our cue from AT&T - they've done a splendid job in presenting themselves to the public. And whether we like it or not, for good or ill, the image of petroleum becomes through the media the image of geophysics. That must be corrected, on a continuing basis, because the general media is far from informed. That doesn't have to be. Geophysicists and geologists have a damn good story to tell, and it's time they told it.
     "As a matter of fact, SEG is preparing to tell it. For the past two years, I have been fortunate enough to be somewhat involved in the reorganization of the SEG Education Foundation. One of the activities of the Foundation will be the development and dissemination of effective, top-quality presentations to the media, the government and the public which will help take them out of the uninformed category. If all of us in the exploration community join together and endow the Foundation adequately, I believe it may be the most important action SEG has undertaken - it certainly deserves our full support."

     And what about the image of science generally, and high tech? Are they compatible with the humanities, which many in the arts and the soft sciences contend is not true? Can hard science, without intelligently explaining itself, save itself from the misinformed at best and the fear-mongers at worst?
     "No," emphasizes Green. "Though art and science must be compatible - the principal burden is on science. The people who point to bad technology in some cases have a point. Television, for example, often is an adverse influence, especially on children. I'm often glad that as a student I grew up before TV was invented.
     "On the other hand, look at the fine things that have flowed from science. We must better show the complementary relationship between science and the humanities. Our standard of living, for example - which gives greater freedom and time to the artist - would hardly be what it is without science. It's quite easy to demonstrate against high technology, anybody can go out into the street and wave a placard, but what are the alternatives? It is the responsibility of scientists to provide them. I have no doubt they will."

     When Green extols the compatibility of art and science, he knows whereof he speaks. He supports fine art. And in this age of schlock music (his definition of rock and roll is syncopated noise) he evokes the spirit of Renaissance Man. He was a violinist with the Vancouver Symphony and is a pillar of support in the considerable musical world of Dallas, a city where diva Joan Sutherland made her American debut. Two years ago he purchased a modern electric digital organ for the Graduate and Professional Center at the Colorado School of Mines. Somebody commented, "What a waste of money."
     "Gibberish," Green says. "Good music is thrilling. It regenerates you. It's the same with literature, with poetry [which he quotes - Grey, Tennyson, Shakespeare et al.]. I wouldn't take anything for my early studies in composition, the discipline of memorizing verse. Both are excellent for fine, clear thinking, and the latter is fine for improving memory."

     Which brings us back to Green's key themes - education and people. "I've been interested in both for a long time, in my companies and in SEG. But there are definite problems with American education. I remember when I was an SEG officer, I thought it would be nice to have a program for student authors - to give a prize for best papers - open to Americans and Canadians. After two years we found we had to split the programs - the Canadians were winning most of the prizes - better composition!
     "Since then, I've fought to turn that around. I've long been a sponsor and counselor to students - right now to those aspiring to Stanford, the Colorado School of Mines, and MIT, and I believe superior education should be the nation's No. 1 priority all across the board.
     "For example, on the humanities again, the current director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester came from MIT. The latter school is very strong in music, it has a great deal of sensitivity. In fact, I would rate MIT high on this score. That's quite a contrast from when I was graduated. On graduation day, I looked over my shoulder and said, 'Goodbye, factory.' That was before the humanities and social sciences were formally introduced."

     How far and wide does Green's lifetime quest for, and achievements in, general excellence extend? A few examples:

     First recipient of the Maurice Ewing Medal, the highest award of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

     First recipient of the SEG Kauffman Medal.

     Honorary life membership in SEG. (He has served on numerous committees of the Society and was a member of its executive committee for four years, 1945l49, as Secretary-Treasurer, Vice-President, President, and Past President. It was during his presidency that the first Sections were launched and the business office established with Colin C. Campbell.

     Establishment in 1964 of the Center for Earth Sciences at MIT.

     Major support of education and research at Stanford, the Colorado School of Mines, the University of Texas Marine Sciences Institute, the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and others.

     Endowment of more than a dozen chairs and professorships at the world's leading education institutions.

     Major support of high-tech medicine, including nuclear magnetic resonance imaging as another tool for very early detection of cancer and which someday might even be capable of forcing diseased cells to self-destruct (see Science, Feb. 5, 1982, pp. 619-626, and Technology, Jan./Feb., 1982, pp. 33l39).

     One of the three original Trustees of the SEG Education Foundation - currently an Advisory Member of the SEG Education Foundation Endowment Committee.

     Launching in 1950, with MIT, the Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Toronto an innovative student orientation program, demonstrating to a new group of undergraduates each year the nature and everyday functions of exploration geophysics, in field and lab - eventually selecting as employees from that pool the "naturals" - those with an affinity for geophysics exclusively.

     The last was not done in total selflessness. However, when benefits from it accrued to Green's companies they also went to industry generally - again, falling in line with his theme that collaboration leads to excellence - in this case, generously dispersed.
     "As a result of that collaboration, GSI's business went up five times in five years. It didn't take the others long to catch up, but no matter. We made a special point of also including key individuals from many major petroleum companies to confirm the great importance of exploration geophysics. Also, we brought in professors from many universities for further orientation of the students.
     "Subsequently many of them went on to get their doctorates and came to work for us. Others went with the majors - but that didn't hurt us - oftentimes the best salesmen aren't on the payroll. We felt that we were, in effect, building quality, character, in the industry - a unity of knowledge from which all would benefit."
     Green is quick to point out that the educational/industrial avenue runs both ways, that the best teachers are often those who have had some experience in the industry, e.g., "... the head of geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Milo M. Backus, was formerly with GSI. Other alumni include Dr. William A. Schneider, now the George Brown Professor of Geophysical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, and Dr. Freeman Gilbert, a senior geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. We're all still good friends."

     For Green, there is perhaps a dark irony in his capstones in education. He has not been blind to what has happened, and is continuing to happen, to education generally in America, especially in secondary schools. While he has been serving on visiting physics committees at major institutions such as MIT, Stanford, IGPP, the Colorado School of Mines, and continuing his far-flung and generously endowed quest for excellence, other trends have transpired in the public school systems - watered-down standards, parodies of discipline, a change in the public schools from the past that is nothing short of tragic.
     Not long ago 11th grade students in Florida and Texas took a test in reading, writing, and arithmetic designed for ninth-graders. More than half failed. A similar test was then administered to thousands of teachers in those states. More than half of them failed.
     Could private schools, such as St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas (Green is a past president) take up the slack from that educational abomination? "No," he says. "Impossible. It's got to be done by the public schools. They have the money. What they also have is a tremendous ethical problem. The academic standards, and discipline, are not being supported by parents. I've known school counselors who, on going to parents' homes, have been belittled as they tried to explain the necessary disciplinary actions. That's criminal. This is a serious situation, especially when it reaches up into the higher grades.
     "And we don't teach our children languages. America is not a province anymore, it cannot afford provincialism. Languages apply to everything in a cultural exchange, including, and perhaps especially, business. At any given time there are likely a thousand bilingual Japanese businessmen in New York, selling. At the same time there are probably no more than a hundred American counterparts in Tokyo trying to do the same thing. Who do you think is achieving the most? It's all right not to know the other man's language when you're buying, but just try it when you're selling."

     Green's point is personal as well as general. When Bell Laboratories developed the germanium transistor and Texas Instruments took out a license to make them, TI did all right at first, but much better after they had developed the silicon transistor with its much wider temperature range.
     "We anticipated a six months lead on our competitors, but they were kind to us - they didn't catch up for more than two years. We thought the whole thing would trigger the American market. You know what it did? It triggered the Japanese. You think they couldn't read, with ease, English language journals? Follow industrial developments? Communicate face-to-face? Our aggressiveness, in effect, set the Japanese up in business."
     Green and his colleagues have long since recognized the importance of internationalism in their business. Although the board of GSI/TI is made up of US citizens, there is also an advisory committee (Green is a member) which includes a member of the British Parliament, a Japanese who was ambassador to the Court of St. James, and other top professionals from France and Germany. Thus, the company is able to assess the business and political climate of several countries almost first-hand - through citizens of those countries - and to have ready access to their views of economic changes in other nations. Again - part of Green's axiom that collaboration leads to excellence.

     How does Green view today's short-term geophysical outlook? Moderately good. "We're seeing activity calm down now, after the frenetic pace of last year. But as the companies cut back on exploration we'll make this up in field development - working more with the petroleum engineers. In fact, that's becoming a large part of our business anyway - fine-tuning fields that have initial production."
     Among Green's many sources of satisfaction (10 honorary degrees, for example - largely because of his success as a collaborator) is his latest pride and joy, the recently christened Cecil Green II seismic exploration ship, 185 feet long, 40-foot beam, the latest in the GSI fleet and carrying the most advanced high-tech equipment. This, along with other GSI vessels, will go a long way toward keeping the company vigorous, as offshore exploration continues healthy despite the leveling onshore.

     Now, as Green looks back over more than a half-century of achievement, one wonders what might be his chief source of delight. Money? (Hardly - for him it's strictly a tool). Education? (Perhaps - but it's also a tool). Collaboration? Definitely. But collaboration implies association. His chief associate is, and always has been, his beloved Ida, the lovely lady "... who has always been 51% of anything I ever achieved."
     This is not far from the truth. The National Academy of Sciences in 1979 awarded the Greens the Public Welfare Medal, the first couple ever to receive it (the initial recipient was General Goethals). They also received the City of Dallas Linz Award for greatest civic achievement in a particular year - also a first for a couple.

     Years ago, Ida attended Southern Methodist University. "Then, much later," her husband explains, "the University of British Columbia conferred on her a Doctor of Laws honorary degree. I was quite perplexed because I thought it should have been in the humanities. Then one night - in the middle of the night, in fact - it dawned on me. I called up the president of UBC and told him I finally figured out his reasoning. I said, 'Ida's been laying the law down to me for over 50 years and you decided to make it official'."
     "That's really not so," counters Ida. "We've been a good combination - a great partnership. I think it's because we've had common goals, and Cecil has been very gracious to me in letting me share him and his work. We took the bad along with the good. He was a generous husband to include me."
     Cecil rejoins: "There was no generosity to it. She has always been of immense help - in our early days, for example, when wives grew lonely with their men away on the crews for long periods. Or when they did travel together on assignment, having to put up with as-you-find-it housing, and the constant moving - she showed the wives how to adjust, how to look at it all with perspective, how to look to the future. She was always the bridge of understanding."

     And now, in the alleged twilight of the Green's professional and leisure life (the two always synonymous), what does Cecil foresee for him and his lady? No comment. (Translation: "We're too busy to think about it.") Retirement? ("What's retirement?") Blissful relaxation? ("That's not bliss.")
     For bliss is not action. Dedication is. Collaboration is. You can be certain that whatever their goals, their affair with a full life, at full pitch, will continue to shine in use. Cecil and Ida call forth an echo - clear, pure, triumphant - of Tennyson's Ulysses, whose ending might have been written for them:

     Though much is taken, much abides, and
     Though we are not now that which in old days
     Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we
     Are; one equal temper of heroic hearts,
     Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
     To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.