| THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING |    |
| PART TWELVE - GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH CORPORATION | |
The terms of office of the first twenty-six Presidents of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists covers aperiod from 1930 to 1957. Fifteen of the twenty-six men had been associated with Everette De Golyer in one or more of his ccmpanies. The first five Presidents, Barton, Weaver, McDermott, Rosaire and Weatherby were De Golyer men. L. W. Blau of Humble was the sixth President, while E. A. Eckhardt of Gulf was the ninth President. The seventh, eighth, tenth and eleventh Presidents were all trained by the Geophysical Research Corporation; namely Karcher, Kannenstine, Born and Peacock. The twenty-sixth President, Roy Bennett, who like ten of his predecessors, had had his start in the Geophysical Research Corporation; was sworn into office a month before De Golyer's death.
Early in 1925, De Golyer had asked Donald C. Barton to prepare a list of competent geophysicists. Barton was at that time Chief Gelogist of the Rycade Oil Corporation, an Amerada subsidiary. De Golyer prepared his own list. When "De" examined Barton's list some weeks later, he found that the only name that was common to both lists was John Clarence Karcher. Karcher had been graduated in physics at the University of Oklahoma five years after De Golyer had obtained his degree in geology but De Golyer had never met Karcher, he only knew him by reputation.
Harold Veatch Bozell had been Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma from 1908 to 1916, which covered all of Karcher's undergraduate career and half of De Golyer's. Karcher had had classes under Bozell. H. V. Bozell had spent the next five years as Professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale and was now living in New York City as the Editor of the "Electrical World." De Golyer contacted Bozell and asked if he happened to know the present whereabouts of J. C. Karcher. Bozell stated that Dr. Karcher was head of a division of engineering development for the Western Electric Company in Cicero, lllinois. He agreed to arrange an interview between De Golyer and Karcher in New York.
In March of 1925 four men had luncheon together at the Banker's Club in New York City. They were Everette De Golyer, Harold Bozell, Dr. Donald C. Barton and Dr. John Clarence Karcher. That was the beginning of an intimate association and friendship between De Golyer and Karcher. In 1942 they ceased to be business partners when De Golyer accepted the first of a number of high posts in Washington with the Petroleum Administration for War.
A second meeting between De Golyer and Karcher took place in April of 1925, this time in St. Louis. De Golyer wired Dr. Karcher at his home in Oak Park, Illinois, that he would pass through St. Louis on his way to Tulsa at eleven in the morning on such and such a date and that he would like to discuss further the seismic proposal that had been initiated in New York. Karcher wired his acceptance to New York and on the date specified took an early morning train out of Chicago that arrived in St. Louis at approximately the same hour that De Golyer's train chugged into the station. The meeting took place on the second floor waiting room of the St. Louis Union Station. De Golyer told Karcher that he would like to have him serve as Vice President of the soon to be formed Geophysical Research Corporation at a certain saiary. Karcher indicated that the salary-was satisfactory but that in addition he would require that 15% of the stock of the new corporation be placed in his name. Karcher remained adamant about this demand, saying that his salary prospects were too bright with Western Electric to risk a new enterprise without some participation in the success of that enterprise. The two men shook hands on the deal. Karcher returned to Chicago on the afternoon train while De Golyer journied west to Tulsa. Karcher entered into the process of getting his affairs in readiness for his change in jobs. On May first he resigned his position with Western Electric, effective on June 1, 1925.
The third meeting between Karcher and De Golyer took place early in June at the Amerada offices in New York which were at that time situated at 65 Broadway. Karcher was given the responsibility of recruiting physicists and electrical engineers to fill the necessary positions to start the laboratory in New Jersey. He was also told to start a search for technical personnel to fill the field positions which would be opening up at Houston, Texas, late in 1925 or early in 1926.
The Geophysical Research Corporation was incorporated in May, 1925, with De Golyer as President and Karcher as Vice President. Robert Nock served as the Secretary of both the GRC and the Amerada Petroleum Corporation. The stock of the corporation was distributed 42 ½ % to Amerada, 42 ½ % to Rycade and 15% to Karcher . GRC started to build its first set of refraction seismograph instruments in mid-June of 1925. The laboratory, as they laughingly called it, was a large room over a drug store in Bloomfield, New Jersey, equipped with benches, drafting instruments and supplies, soldering irons, one lathe and the simplest of tools. De Golyer had set aside $300,000 for experimental purposes. That sum had to last for many, many months to come until the GRC could go onto a contract basis and become self supporting. If the physical equipment of the lab over the drug store left something to be desired, the quality of the scientists who went to work there was of the highest. Columbia University and the University of Chicago were the early leaders in radio and electronics and the three men who were to become Director of the GRC Laboratory were from one school or the other.
Eugene McDermott had studied under Hazeltine, an authority on vacuum tubes, al the Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey and under radio wizard, Morecroft, at Columbia. A few days after receiving his M. A. in Physics from Columbia University, McDermott read a notice on the bulletin board of the physics building, that physics graduates were being interrogated by a Dr. Karcher at a certain address. McDermott was interviewed and accepted as Karcher's first technical assistant. Karcher and McDermott went to work on drawings and plans for the instrumentation at the Bloomfield plant. Dr. Karcher had other projects on which he was kept busy by De Golyer in Boston, Houston, New York and Tulsa; so that McDermott was left in charge of the New Jersey Laboratory and was largely responsible for the progress made in designing the instruments.
Karcher's assignment in Boston was to make the acquaintance of Reginald Fessenden and procure from him his 1914 patent for locating ore bodies. De Golyer made the first sojourn to Boston with Karcher and introduced him to Fessenden, then left the two physicists to work out the patent acquisition. Karcher made many trips to Boston to see Reginald Fessenden, as De Golyer had been doing for a number of years. Although Fessenden had a reputation for being temperamental, the two scientists hit if off weIl enough together and in time the acoustics patent became the property of the Geophyscial Research Corporation. The asking price was one million dollars but continuing negotiations brought the price down to a sensible figure. Much more than a fringe benefit to the GRC was the fact that eminent inventor Fessenden was available for consultation on problems of acoustics and on radio communication; both vital subjects to the success of seismic exploration.
Fabian M. Kannenstine had received his doctor's degree in physics and mathematics at the University of Chicago in 1922. As his field was atomic physics, he had studied under Chicago's two Nobel prize winners, Albert Abraham Michelson and Robert Andrews Millikan. In 1925, Kannenstine was working for the Western Electric Company in Cicero together with fellow University of Chicagoan, E. E. Rosaire. J. C. Karcher knew Rosaire and hired him as a future field general for the GRC. Rosaire had recommended Kannenstine as being ideally equipped for instrument design and research. Karcher thereupon hired Kannenstine for work in the Laboratory. Both Rosaire and Kannenstine left Western Electric in the fall of 1925 to accept employment with the GRC. Upon his arrival in Bloomfield, Kannenstine assumed part of Eugene McDermott’s responsibility for putting out a set of refraction instruments as soon as possible. In April of 1926, McDermott was transferred to the Houston office to take charge of the Gulf Production Cornpany's second GRC field party, and Dr. Kannenstine was left in sole charge of the Bloomfield Laboratory.
From nearby Newark, New Jersey, Electrical Engineer Frank Borman had come to work in the Bloomfield lab. Borman's mathematics professor at the Newark College of Engineering was acquainted with McDermott and had recommended Borman. McDerrnott had signed up Borman for a job in July. In the fall of 1925, Karcher had made a trip back' to his old graduate school, Pennsylvania, to interview Alexander Wolf about a job with the GRC. ,Dr. Karcher did not know Wolf but he did know graduate student Ben B. Weatherby. Karcher said hello to Weatherby and asked Weatherby to introduce him to Wolf. Weatherby was naturally curious to know what sort of jobs were open in Karcher's organization. The trip to Philadelphia was unsuccessful insofar as Wolf was concerned, for that young man could not be located. However, Karcher made an arrangement with Weatherby, whereby he would report for a field position with the GRC at the end of the school year in June of 1926.
F. M. Kannenstine had taught for a time at the University of Chicago. One of his bright students was William Ted Born, who received his B. A. in Physics in June, 1925, and had gone to work for the Commonwealth Edison Company in Chicago. In December of 1925, Dr. Kannenstine sent a telegram to Born which said:
"Have a job for you. Can you come immediately?“
Born could and did, going to work in the Bloomfield Laboratory on December 15, 1925. When Ted Born reported to Bloomfield, there was a full-time draftsman and two machinists working for the GRC. Steinmann, the senior machinist, had been hired away from the Roller Bearing, Company.
When Dr. Kannenstine changed companies and moved to Houston in 1932, William Ted Born moved up to the job of Director of the Laboratory for the GRC, the position he still holds. From the room over the drug store the Laboratory was moved to larger and better quarters in Bloomfield, not once but twice in the year 1927. GRC was growing by leaps and bounds. In 1928, the Geophysical Research Corporation built a building in Bloomfield to house the Laboratory. In 1933, the whole set-up was removed from New Jersey to a large brick building that had been erected on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Borman, Born, Karcher, Kannenstine and, McDermott all recall that during 1925 everyone worked a seven day week, at the Laboratory. Ted Born also remembers that he and Dr. Karcher spent many of their evenings winding galvanometer coils. The first set of instruments was tested near Bloomfield in December 1925. From then on the tempo of the work increased, until finally every waking hour was spent at the Laboratory. Everyone worked all day, every day and far into every night. A few days be fore 1926, the equipment was crated and put aboard a train bound for Houston. The Laboratory workers fell into bed utterly exhausted. Some of them slept like horses, with their shoes on.