Eugene McDermott
In 1951, McDermott, along with Cecil Howard Green, Patrick E. Haggerty, and J. Erik Jonsson co-founded Texas Instruments. This was done when the company changed its name to Texas Instruments; GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. This acknowledged that the company had changed its focus from one primarily devoted to oil exploration to one focused on manufacturing. McDermott was the Chairman of TI from 1951-1957, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Board of Directors from 1957-1964 and Director until his death in 1973. During this period of time, Texas Instruments rose to be one of the world's largest corporations.
Geophysical Service
On December 6, 1941, the company was purchased by Eugene McDermott, Cecil Howard Green, J. Erik Jonsson, and H.B. Peacock. During World War II, the company produced submarine detection devices. In 1951, the company was renamed Texas Instruments (TI) with GSI as a division. GSI was later sold by TI, repurchased, and finally sold again to Halliburton in 1988. Halliburton also acquired GeoSource, a competing geophysical contractor (formerly Petty-Ray Geophysical), and attempted to merge the two companies. Unfortunately the rivalry between the two entities endured and the merged entity known as Halliburton Geophysical Services (HGS) proved to be far from profitable. After several years of losses in 1994 Halliburton sold HGS to Western Atlas (formerly Western Geophysical until its merger with Dresser Atlas in 1987). Western Atlas was bought by Baker Hughes in 1998 and was then merged into WesternGeco in 2000 through a joint venture with Schlumberger in which Schlumberger held the majority share (70%).