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West Texas timeline of George H.W. Bush
Mindland Reporter-Telegram
Dec. 2, 2018
Editor’s Note: The following ran in “A Midland Scrapbook,” which was published in the Reporter-Telegram around the time of George H.W. Bush’s inauguration in January 1989.
1948: After graduation from Yale, Bush moves his family to Odessa, where he takes a job at $375 a month as an equipment clerk for the International Derrick & Equipment Co. (Ideco), a subsidiary of Dresser Industries. His duties include sweeping and painting, and the family lived on a dirt street in a duplex.
1949: Bush is transferred to California as a drill bit salesman and travels between several cities, sometimes rolling up 1,000 miles a week on the company car. In Compton, a daughter, Robin, is born.
1950: The family returns to West Texas, this time settling in Midland in a light blue house on East Maple Avenue, which is known at the time as“Easter Egg Row”because of the bright-colored residences. The town’s population is about 25,000.
1951: Bush-Overbey Oil Development Co. is founded in Midland. Two years later, the company is absorbed into Zapata Petroleum Corp. – named after the movie “Viva Zapata!” – and in 1954 Bush co-founds Zapata Off-Shore Co.
1952: For the first time, Bush dabbles in politics while in Midland, raising campaign funds for the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket. “But it was strictly a side thing,” he recalled later. “I had to work. I hadn’t thought of running.”
1953: On Feb. 11, John Ellis Bush, Bush nicknamed “Jeb,” is born in Midland. The Bush couple’s second child, daughter Robin, is stricken with leukemia at the family’s second Midland home on Ohio Avenue. She dies Oct. 11, 1953, at the age of 3 years, 10 months.
1955: A third son, Neil Mallon Bush, is born in Midland.
1956: Bush is named one of the Five Outstanding Men of Texas by the Texas Junior Chamber of Commerce. He serves as Midland County Chairman for the second Eisenhower-Nixon ticket.
1957: A fourth son, Marvin Pierce Bush, is born in Midland.
1958: Seized by the opportunity of off-shore drilling, Bush moves to Houston to run Zapata’s offshore operations. He becomes involved in Houston Republican Party politics, and is asked to run for chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. “I remember wondering about it, and I decided to do it,” he said of the move. “And that was the quantum leap forward that led to elective politics.”
Editor’s Note: George W. Bush was born in 1946, prior to the family’s move to Texas.
On 28 January 1961, President Kennedy was briefed, together with all the major departments, on the latest plan (code-named Operation Pluto), which involved 1,000 men landed in a ship-borne invasion at Trinidad, Cuba, about 270 km (170 mi) south-east of Havana, at the foothills of the Escambray Mountains in Sancti Spiritus province. Kennedy authorized the active departments to continue and to report progress.[99] Trinidad had good port facilities, it was closer to many existing counter-revolutionary activities, and it offered an escape route into the Escambray Mountains. That scheme was subsequently rejected by the State Department because the airfield there was not large enough for B-26 bombers and, since B-26s were to play a prominent role in the invasion, this would destroy the façade that the invasion was just an uprising with no American involvement. Secretary of State Dean Rusk raised some eyebrows by contemplating airdropping a bulldozer to extend the airfield.[100] Kennedy rejected Trinidad, preferring a more low-key locale.[101] On 4 April 1961, President Kennedy approvedthe Bay of Pigs plan (also known asOperation Zapata), because it had a sufficiently long airfield, it was farther away from large groups of civilians than the Trinidad plan, and it was less "noisy" militarily, which would make denial of direct U.S. involvement more plausible.[102] The invasion landing area was changed to beaches bordering the BahĂa de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) in Las Villas Province, 150 km southeast of Havana, and east of the Zapata Peninsula. The landings were to take place at Playa GirĂłn (code-named Blue Beach), Playa Larga (code-named Red Beach), and Caleta Buena Inlet (code-named Green Beach).[103][page needed][104][page needed][105][106][page needed]
>where he takes a job at $375 a month as an equipment clerk for the International Derrick & Equipment Co. (Ideco), asubsidiary of Dresser Industries.His duties include sweeping and painting, and the family lived on a dirt street in a duplex.
Dresser Harriman > Halliburton
Dresser Industries was a multinational corporation headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, which provided a wide range of technology, products, and services used for developing energy and natural resources. In 1998,Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton.[1] Halliburton sold many of former Dresser non "oil patch" divisions, retaining the M W Kellogg Engineering and Construction Company and the Dresser oil-patch products and services that complemented Halliburton's energy and natural resource businesses. In 2001 Halliburton sold five separate, but somewhat related former Dresser non "oil patch" divisions, to an investment banking firm. Those five operations later took the name "Dresser Inc." In October 2010, Dresser Inc., wasacquired by General Electric.[2] It is headquartered in Addison, Texas.[3]
History
Solomon Robert Dresser invented a "packer", using rubber for a tight fit, and after taking out a patent on May 11, 1880, he began advertising and selling his product, the Dresser Cap Packer, from Bradford, Pennsylvania, in the heart of the oilfields. Dresser's packer was one of many available on the market, and it was another invention that saw a substantial expansion of the company. A flexible coupling, the Dresser Joint, that he built in 1885 to join pipes together in such a way that they would not leak natural gas. This coupling also used rubber for a tight fit, and it was so successful that it permitted for the first time the long-range transmission of natural gas from the gas fields where it was extracted to the cities which were the main gas consumers.[4]
As the natural gas industry prospered and expanded after 1900, Dresser's company grew as pipelines were built over great distances. By 1927 the company's annual sales had reached US$3.7 million and it was employing 400 workers.[4]
Public offering
Following Dresser's death, his descendants decided to sell it, and in 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Inc., converted the firm into a public company by issuing 300,000 shares of stock.[5]
H. Neil Mallon was selected as president and chief executive officer; he held that position until his retirement in 1962. Under Mallon, Dresser began a program of acquisitions designed to help it survive the threat posed to its core business by the introduction of welding for joining pipes together. Starting in 1930 Dresser began acquiring companies that manufactured valves, heaters, pumps, engines and compressors and the company diversified into such products as oil derricks, blowers, drill bits, refractories, and drilling mud.[4]
Merger with Halliburton
In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton and became known as Halliburton Company.[1]Dick Cheney negotiated the US$7.7 billion deal, reportedly having done so during a weekend of quail-hunting. In 2001, Halliburton was forced to settle the asbestos lawsuits that it acquired including the landmark case Bell v. Dresser Industries [16] as a result of purchasing Dresser, causing the company's stock price to fall by eighty percent in just over a year.[17]