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Committee Members
Jim Acker
Ace Forgay
Bob Hart
Jim Hubbell
Brian T. O'Sullivan
Profiles
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Jim Acker, Former Owner of Seispros International, Houston, TX
Joined GSI in summer of 1963 as a temporary job to save some money to continue my college education. Lyin' Bob Everett promised that if I'd work for six weeks on a domestic land crew (to see if I could hack it), I'd be sent to Saudi for a two year hitch where I'd get rich. First crew was in Scobey, Montana near the Saskatchewan border in NE Montana. Even after four years in the Marines, I'd never been to a place like Scobey. The town had one blinking yellow traffic light on Main Street and four bars for a population of 1000. A recent check of Scobey revealed a population of 750, blinking yellow light, same four bars and one AA club. There was a good looking single school teacher then who, after a few beers would light her farts with a Zippo lighter. She was just one of many zany people who thought they were normal in that town. The Ponderosa Bar had a two headed stuffed calf in the bar and a barrel of salted peanuts where you'd help yourself. We worked 50 hours a week and drank many pitchers of beer at the Ponderosa. When we finished our work there, tears were shed and a going away party was given. I didn't think it got better than that. I was wrong. Hot Springs, SD was several years ahead of the rest of the country on the road to sexual revolution. The end of that year found me working in Arizona on the Navaho and Hopi Indian reservations where we were attacked by Indians. The following year I was working in Alaska on the "Grubby" Grebe, a 110 foot WW2 submarine chaser that only carried 2500 gallons of water with no water maker. The one and only toilet was a pump type that would often squirt back in your face as you went through the ritual of "feeding the gulls". My first seven years was spent mainly on the west coast and Alaska working alternately on the boats and on land crews. I was kind of a local field service rep which meant when someone quit or couldn't hack it, I was their replacement for awhile. In early 1970 I was called to Dallas to attend a GeoNav school (satellite navigation). Ultimately I was navigation field service and traveled to over 70 countries. It was probably the best period of my life. My ritual before leaving on a trip was to clean the house, fill the fridge with beer, put the radio on my favorite station so that when I came home anywhere from two weeks to 6 months later, I felt at home. My jet lag was such that often I'd go to the 7 AM discotheque and try to connect with TI night-shift assembly girls just getting off work. Ace Forgay was my boss during this period and was able to protect me from myself.
All good things have to end. Ace left GSI, and I got married for some reason.
My wife wanted order and schedule in my life. I took the job of field service
manager, but the excitement was mostly gone. I quit in 1980 to help start a
seismic acquisition company in Houston. We did very well. After the boom was
over, I sold my share of Southern Seismic and became a consultant. Ultimately I
started my own consulting company, Seis Pros Intl. and am presently president
of same. We are praying for another boom and are expanding into other fields.
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Ace Forgay, Consultant, Hartwell, GA
Temporarily retired while building a house on Lake Hartwell in
Northeast Georgia. GSI 1956-1977. Spent most of my time in EAME, but spent
the last five years in Dallas as Navigation Manager. 1978-79 with Seiscom
Delta. 1980-85 with Norpac in Denver. 1986 to present. Consultant now
specilizing in Land 3D Project Management.
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Bob Hart, Retired Doodlebugger par excellence, Chapin, SC I was going to an electronic trade school (on the GI bill) in St. Louis and came across a brochure of GSI's. The foreign travel part of the brochure looked interesting. Ed Dickey and I graduated in September of 1958 and both went Doodlebugging. We didn't have a clue what the company did, but we were hired. I worked in the states (Pecos, Bakersfield and Wonderful Wyoming) for a year as a J.O., then went to Sumatra for a couple of years. Herman Koch was the manager for most of this tour. He was a great man to work for, but a better man to drink with. (He could be a candidate for the hall of fame. Though most of his life was in management, his heart was out in the field.) The company bought its second U.S.Navy ship in Portland, in early '61 and I went to help convert it. That's it. I stayed in marine for the next 33 years. Captain John Hesselberg was hired to take care of the nautical side of the ships in the early 60's. Peter Reichle and I helped John rig 4 ships in Malta about '66-'67 and we both spent many years rigging and derigging after that. John got caught up in the politics of GSI and left the company. He and I stayed friends till he died a couple of years ago in West Palm Beach. Pete died at his home in November 1994 in Freeport, Bahamas--about 3 months after we went to see him. Bill Blakeley retired in the late 80's and I was told if wanted to be paid, I had to come to the office. They refused to mail any more checks. Having been single all my life up to this point, I knew I would be in trouble trying to live a normal life in the office. Sure enough, George Sellers and his wife Margaret (ex- GSI London secretary) just happened to have a friend who happened to be single too. I've been married 11 years next month, and sober most of that time. We moved to Lake Murray in SC last April. December 1,1999 we moved into a house we built. This is my last house. My marriage is not strong enough to build another one. Ships are easy, houses are hell. E-Mail- robhart@bellsouth.net |
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GSI 1968-86, I.E., Party Manager, Well Shooter, Helicopter Coordinator,
Cartoonist, as required.
Bob Everett sent me to the Far East in '69. Worked in Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, East Malaysia, China, Turkey, and a special relief job for Jim Kerr in Peru. I worked one Marine contract on the MV Carino in Canada and the North Sea, and the MV Tasman Seal in the Philippines and Persian Gulf. I spent a year in the Singapore office doing purchasing and shipping. In mid-1986, I'd been working on Hainan Island as APM on a Vibe job for a bunch of banana benders (client), Pat McNeal was my boss. I ran afoul of a young birddog, and he had me tossed off the crew. GSI then decided they could get along without me as well, and left me to my own devices. That was the end of my seismograph career. The seismic business wasn't doing all that well at the time, and I had 17 years invested that I didn't want to lose. The guy who originally hired me, Don Makinson, was a senior personnel man at TI in Sherman, Texas. I went to see him, and he saw to it that I found a job. As of March 18, 2005, I was officially retired with 36 years service. E-Mail- n5cop@verizon.net |
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Brian T. O'Sullivan, Operations Consultant, Calgary, Alberta In 1966 Neil Vanson rescued me from a dismal life on the Canadian prairies and hired me on with GSI as a surveyor. Naturally my first stop was the on the jug line. I was promoted to the doghouse after the J.O. got drunk, fell off a motel balcony and broke his arm, making it impossible for him to stick his hand up the “elephants ass”. Martin Anderson taught me how to troubleshoot a set of 9000’s with a rubber hammer, a bottle of Everclear and a can of orange juice. Over the next couple of years I managed to get through a DFS school in Dallas, win a bet with Larry Patterson by learning to sky dive, and wangle a job in Dallas Field Service working for Bernie Huber. I spent time in the Louisiana swamp watching Hubbell kill snakes, in Mexico with Ned Loftland trying to learn Spanish, and in Houston finding errors in the DFS III manuals with Jeff Chapman. The rest of the time I hung around the Dallas office, hiding from Lyin’ Bob Everett. In 1969 after a brief stint in the High Arctic I was transferred to South East Asia. I survived the wild days in Singapore through the early ‘70’s, living in Ben Lages’ infamous flat / cat house on River Valley Road, falling off bar stools in the Pink Pussycat and watching the sun rise over Bugis street as drunken sailors preformed the dance of the flaming asshole. GSI had 8 or 9 crews in Indonesia during this time and we even managed to shoot a little seismic data. If you liked hot beer and a wet camp bed, life in the jungle was good. The nights were made bearable by the friendship of people like Honest Lefty, Terry Howe, “Old Silver Tongue” Elmer Guse, Pissy Pete Wright and many others who always took the time to pick a leach or two off a fellow doodlebugger. After I discovered snow was rare in that part of the world I figure it would be good place to hide, so I did. For 20 years.
In 1978, along with my wife Sandra and my newborn son, I was transferred to the
GSI Caltex Sumatra operation as Party Chief / Supervisor. For the next 13 years
we lived in Rumbai, where our daughter Kelly was born in 1983. In 1987 I sold
my loyalty for another nickel and went to work for Caltex. By 1991 my family
had their fill of camp life and we returned to Calgary where I have my own
geophysical consulting business. I still spend 200 days a year doodlebugging,
where I often meet old GSI friends from the past and we get a chance to cry in
our beer and relive the “good old days”. It was never a job; it was a way of
life.
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