[2] As an undergraduate, Karcher attended the University of Oklahoma where in 1916 he received a BS degree in both Electrical Engineering and physics and was at the head of his class.

His assignment was to locate heavy artillery batteries in France by studying the acoustic waves the guns generated in the air.

Unable at the time to pursue a career in petroleum exploration, Karcher went to work for the Bureau of Standards, and then joined Western Electric Company where he performed research on ocean-bottom telegraph cable.

Karcher was made vice president, with a $300,000 research fund and a considerable 15 percent stock interest, which he had negotiated with DeGolyer.

One of his first actions after establishing headquarters in Bloomfield, New Jersey, was to hire Eugene McDermott, his protégé from Western Electric, then a Columbia University graduate student.

GRC began using seismographic refraction but would introduce the seismic reflection method which over the next five years was accepted by the petroleum industry as a promising new tool.

[8] Remaining as a wholly owned subsidiary pursuing oil exploration services, GSI spun off Texas Instruments(TI) in 1951.

Karcher would continue in leadership roles with oil production and exploration companies, but would be largely divested of his interest in GSI by 1950, prior to the inception of TI.

[citation needed] Karcher served as president and general manager of Coronado Corporation, a subsidiary of Texas Instruments, from 1939 to 1941, and as chairman of the board of Las Tecas Petroleum Company from 1941 to 1945.

In 1976, Karcher received the Anthony Lucas Medal from the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers for his invention and development of the reflection seismograph.