George C. McGhee

George Crews McGhee (March 10, 1912 – July 4, 2005) was an American oilman and a career diplomat in the United States foreign service.

Early life McGhee was born on March 10, 1912, in Waco, Texas, the son of a Waco banker. He studied at the University of Oklahoma, graduating with a degree in geology in 1933. He was initiated into the Oklahoma Kappa chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at OU. For a time McGhee worked for Conoco, on a crew that made the first oil discovery on the Gulf Coast using reflection seismology. He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, and earned a doctorate in physical sciences from Oxford University in 1937. Back in the United States he became vice president of the National Geophysical Company, where he managed reflection seismology surveys in Cuba. On his return to Texas, McGhee found employment with Everette Lee DeGolyer's oil services company DeGolyer and MacNaughton, scouting oilfields and marrying DeGolyer's daughter Cecilia. McGhee described Cecilia as "the most beautiful and richest girl in Texas." In 1940 McGhee established his own company, the McGhee Production Company, and soon discovered a major oil field at Lake Charles, Louisiana, which made his fortune.

Wartime service At the beginning of World War II McGhee was a member of the staff of the Office of Production Management and a member of the War Production Board. Commissioned into the U.S. Navy, McGhee served as a naval air intelligence officer on the staff of Army Air Force General Curtis E. LeMay, for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit.

McGhee was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1993.

In retirement McGhee wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, entitled The Dance of the Billions: A Novel About Texas, Houston, and Oil (1990), whose lack of success was attributed by his family to its puritanical tone. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

McGhee died of pneumonia on July 4, 2005, at the age of 93 at Loudoun Hospital Center in Leesburg, Virginia.