Drilling for Size

John B. O'Connor, 57, is a man smitten by wanderlust. In twelve years as executive vice president of Dresser Industries, one of the world's biggest oil equipment and service companies (annual sales of $225 million), Oilman O'Connor logs more than 100,000 miles a year helping run Dresser's eleven subsidiaries spread over eleven states and nine foreign countries. Recently the oil industry's Nomads Club voted him "the world's most-traveled executive." Last week Traveler O'Connor made one of the most important moves of his career; he stepped up to Dresser's presidency, taking over from Henry Neil Mallon, 61, who is moving on to the board chairmanship. Says new President O'Connor: "My duties will be the same. I'll still be out hustling business around the world, while Mallon continues to set top policy. As usual at Dresser, everybody will work just a little harder."

Houston to Greece. Oilman O'Connor will be responsible for a worldwide $18 million expansion program at Dresser--everything from a new research center in Houston to a barite and bentonite (used in drilling muds) mining operation on the island of Mikomos, off the coast of Greece. The new products closest to the O'Connor heart are two oil turbodrills, which he recently succeeded in buying after eight months of on-again, off-again negotiations (TIME, Oct. 8) with the Russians and France's Etablissements Neyrpic. To be tested for the first time in Dallas this week, the new turbodrills, says O'Connor, will be as big an advance for oilmen as current rotary drills were over old-fashioned cable drills.

Without O'Connor, Dresser might never have got the Russian drill. The Commerce Department first refused to let Dresser export any technical information in exchange for the drills; eventually, O'Connor worked out a straight cash deal with the U.S.S.R. O'Connor feels that getting the Russian equipment was worth the trouble, since U.S. engineers were unsuccessful in developing a turbodrill that could withstand the strain and pressure of deep drilling. Says O'Connor: "That's where the Russians beat us. They decided that if they were going to drill with mud, they must lubricate with mud. They're just a bunch of farmers, and they took the logical way out."

To Serve the Industry. For 27 years the Dresser company has been farsighted enough to acquire the best and newest equipment that the oil world has to offer. When Mallon stepped into the presidency of Dresser in 1929, it produced only flexible couplings for plain-end pipes, had $5,800,000 in sales. Mallon built up Dresser into a company that could serve the entire gas and oil industry. In 1937 Dresser bought its first subsidiary company, Clark Bros, (angle compressors), and also got its vice president, John B. O'Connor, in the bargain. Three years later Dresser added centrifugal pumps to its growing list of products with the acquisition of Pacific Pumps, Inc.

By 1944 Dresser had entered the building field with Ideco, which built the nation's tallest man-made structure, a 1,572-ft. TV tower in Oklahoma City. In quick succession, Dresser took on Roots-Connersville's rotary positive blowers, and Security Engineering's rock bits and reamers. By 1948 Dresser had taken seven separate companies under its wing, increased its net sales to $108,600,000. Said Mallon: "When we buy a company, we have to consider if the company would be better off in the Dresser family. Would Dresser itself be better, not just bigger, for having added it? Unless two and two make five, nobody gains by the merger."

Onward & Upward. To make sure it gains, Dresser has always done its best to let every new family member keep its individuality, run itself with its own officers, subject only to Dresser's overall direction. Says Mallon: "We hold on tenaciously to all the operating benefits that go with small-size companies, with Dresser Industries acting as a management group doing all those things where bigness is important." Proving the idea in the last seven years, Dresser found and bought four more companies--Magcobar, Lane-Wells Co., Southwestern Industrial Electronics and Guiberson Corp.--and helped them grow bigger in their fields. As a result of its successful diversification and growth, Dresser estimates earnings will be $7.90 a share in the fiscal year ending Oct. 31 v. $5.04 in the previous year. With such a sprawling operation, ubiquitous President John B. O'Connor will have little opportunity to keep his feet on the ground. Said O'Connor last week: "I'll continue to spend most of my time in an airplane. You can't run this kind of company from a swivel chair in Dallas."

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