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| ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON II  Robert Wood Johnson II (April 4, 1893 – January 30, 1968) was the president of Johnson & Johnson between 1932 and 1938, and chairman of the board from 1938 until 1963. He was the son of one of J&J's founders, Robert Wood Johnson I. He managed the company during the period of growth where J&J became an international corporation. Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey to the upper-class family of Robert Wood Johnson I and Evangeline Johnson. When he was sixteen, his father died, leaving him an estate of $2,000,000. At the time Johnson's father died, he was attending Rutgers Prep. Johnson dropped-out of Rutgers Prep after only a few months and started working full-time at J&J. His son, Robert Wood Johnson III, was the president of Johnson & Johnson from 1963 to 1965. But in 1964 there was a falling out, and Robert Wood Johnson II, as chairman, fired his son. Robert Wood Johnson II died on January 30, 1968, leaving the bulk of his $400,000,000 estate, incuding $300,000,000 in J&J stock to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The will was in probate for nearly four years, during which time the value of the stock grew to almost $1.2 billion. Johnson's billion dollar legacy made the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation the second largest philanthropic foundation in the world. Only the Rockefeller Foundation was larger. The Rockefeller and Johnson foundations still rank as the world's lagest and second largest respectively. Robert Wood Johnson & Johnson's War Effort During World War I Johnson & Johnson would go though a period of growth that continued until the Great Depression. Robert Wood Johnson held a reserve commission in the Quartermaster Corps during the 1930s. In World War II, Johnson became a brigadier general and served as chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC). Johnson personally oversaw war contracts given to more than 6,000 companies. However, while in Washington Johnson made many adversaries and was forced to resign in 1943. Smaller War Plants Corporation was established in June 1942 as a division of the War Production Board. Its aim was to finance and aid smaller American businesses, employing fewer than 500 employees, so that they obtained a greater share in service procurement contracts. In addition to serving as Chairman of the SWPC, Robert Wood Johnson was vice chairman of the War Production Board. It was not until Maury Maverick became chairman in January 1944 that SWPC showed any signs of success, but even he could not fundamentally alter the unfavourable statistics: in December 1939 firms with fewer than 100 employees accounted for 26% of total US manufacturing output, but five years later, a period in which production doubled, this figure had declined to 19%. In 1943, the peak year of the US production effort, firms with under 100 employees were awarded 86,000 contracts. This amounted to about 35% of the total number awarded (241,531), but was worth only 3.5% of the total value ($35.3 million) of all the contracts. See also USA, 2. 1942: To protect the nation's supply chain during wartime production, Congress created the Smaller War Plants Corp. (SWPC). It made direct loans, encouraged commercial lenders to make credit available to small businesses, and advocated for small businesses with federal agencies and bigger businesses.
1943: Regional S.W.P.C. Resigns in Protest - September 29, 1943 - The Michigan regional division of the Smaller War Plants Corp. today resigned in a mass protest stating the agency was nothing more than a glorified publicity agency. Thomas W. Moss, regional director, said the resignations of the entire board were included in a resolution sent to Robert Wood Johnson, head of S.W.P.C. who himself resigned last week effective Oct. 1. 1946: SWPC disbanded when the war ended, and its functions folded into the RFC. The Department of Commerce started some educational and training functions previously handled by the SWPC. RFC continued to oversee government loans.
Jonson & Johnson was a holding company during WW II, just as it is today. Many of the companies and subsidiaries owned, purchased, and started by J&J during WW II had fewer than 500 employees and were therefore eligible for contracts awarded through the Smaller War Plants Corporation. As head of the SWPC., Robert Wood Johnson awarded many government contracts to companies owned by Johnson & Johnson. Of course J&J was also awarded lucrative government contracts outside the SWPC program. Johnson & Johnson was a major supplier for combat first aid kits, wound dressings, tape, paper products and other military supplies during the war. In 1941 Johnson started Ethicon, a subsidiary of J&J's Johnson Sutures Corporation based in Chicago IL. Johnson Sutures received contracts to produce catgut sutures for the war effort. Johnson & Johnson also made a tidy profit selling armor piercing high-explosive artillery shells and bombs that were manufactured in its ordnance plant in Illiopolis, IL. Robert Wood Johnson's position as Vice President of the War Production Board, which had oversight for all war contracts, was no doubt beneficial to J&J in its ability to gain lucrative war-time contracts. World War II was a very profitable time for the company. Johnson & Johnson's wartime comtracts fueled its growth into a worldwide corporate and political powerhouse. General Robert Wood Johnson 
Johnson & Johnson Opens New Ordnance Plant in Illinois The Sangamon Ordnance Plant was a United States Army ammunition manufacturing facility constructed and operated during World War II. It was located west of Illiopolis in Sangamon County, Illinois encompassing 20,000 acres (80 km²). It began as two separate plants, the Sangamon and the Oak Ordnance Plants, separated by Illinois Route 36 and operated by Remington Rand and Johnson & Johnson respectively. Construction of two ordnance plants began in early 1942 following the acquisition of local farms through eminent domain with the ground breaking occurring in April 1942. Around 15,000 workers were employed and construction was largely completed by September 1942 at a cost of $35 million. It employed thousands during the war including many Woman Ordnance Workers (WOW) and produced 20, 57, 75, 90 millimeter as well as 3 inch (76 mm) armor-piercing and high-explosive artillery shells. It also produced bomb fuses and the core of fire bombs known as "bursters." Colonel Robert Wood Johnson Appointed Chief of New York Ordnance District January 31, 1943: Robert Wood Johnson II, President of Johnson & Johnson and Colonel in the United States Army is appointed chief of the New York ordnance district. Johnson will take over his now job early next month. Those who have talked to him since his appointment say he is not satisfied with the share of war contracts small business has received. They expect him to pursue a more aggressive policy. It is reported Johnson is prepared to exercise the corporation authority. If he does, he will have support that already has been gained. Robert Wood Johnson II was the wartime vice chairman of the War Production Board (WPB) The WPB and the nation's factories effected a great turnaround. Military aircraft which totaled 6000 in 1940 jumped to 85,000 in 1943. Factories that made silk ribbons now produced parachutes, automobile factories built tanks, typewriter companies converted to machine guns, undergarment manufacturers sewed mosquito netting, and a roller coaster manufacturer converted to the production of bomber repair platforms. The WPB ensured that each factory received materials it needed to operate, in order to produce the most war goods in the shortest time. From 1942 to 1945 the WPB directed a total production of $185 billion worth of armament and supplies. At war's end, most production restrictions were quickly lifted, and the WPB was abolished on November 3, 1945, with its remaining functions transferred to the Civilian Production Administration. The WPB, along with other wartime committees which regulated spending and production, helped to reduce the potential for economic catastrophe after the close of World War II LITTLE BUSINESS: Shot in the ArmMonday, Aug. 30, 1943 Since World War II began, professional mourners have repeatedly hung crepe on the door of small business. But small business bullheadedly refused to die. Last week this stubborn survivor got a shot in the arm. Needle wielder was droopy-lidded, deadpan Robert Wood Johnson, boss of the Smaller War Plants Corp. The shot: a new plan for civilian production in small plants. Fortnight ago, [Robert Wood] Johnson, who came to SWPC last January from Army Ordnance, which had drawn him from the presidency of Johnson & Johnson, turned in his commission as brigadier general, in order to devote his time to civilian business for smaller war plants. His reason: small war plants have got about all they can reasonably expect in war contracts. From now on, the job of SWPC will be to get idle small plants humming on civilian items, which calls for a civilian chief. Basically, after Johnson had awarded as much militaty business to his company as he possibly could, he was enpowered by the United States government to release materials set aside for the war effort, and then divert them to his own operating companies to increase J&J's profits in the private sector.
Desk Policies After 20 months of war, many small plants without war contracts are hanging on by their eyelids. The basis of Johnson's new plan is decentralization of SWPC control. Said he: "Policies generated behind a desk frequently do not fit conditions throughout the nation." To make certain that SWPC policies do meet the needs, Johnson has made the 14 SWPC districts in the nation virtually autonomous, has called in local retailers, bankers and credit men to do the spade work that should get idle small plants to work. (Best example of how the plan is working: Manhattan retailers found a surprising number of plants in their area which could increase civilian goods production tomorrow with materials already cached in Manhattan warehouses, where they have been frozen under a months-old WPB blanket freeze order.) Last week, fast-moving Mr. Johnson, still trying to get some of these materials released by WPB while he looked for other caches, got substantial encouragement for his small business plan. WPB allocated 125,000 tons of steel in the next quarter, a boost of 25,000 tons over the current quarter, for the manufacture of such civilian items as bobby pins, needles, stoves. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,885148,00.html#ixzz0XJNlHd3W Johnson Sheds UniformTo Fight for Civilians WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 1943 —Concerned that war production may cut too deeply, into the civilian economy, Brig. Gen. Robert Wood Johnson stripped off his Army uniform so that he would be free to make a stronger fight for more production for civilians. The 50-year-old businessman and chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corp. said he had had no specific disagreements as yet with Army officials. But he made clear that he thought "from here out" there would be increasing competition between war and civilian production for supplies of manpower and raw materials. Civilian Champion He wanted, he told a press conference, to become a "champion of civilian economy to a large degree" and hence had resigned his Army commission. Johnson was an officer of Johnson & Johnson, surgical dressing manufacturers, when he entered the Army as a colonel in ordnance. He was borrowed from the War Department to become head of the S.W.P.C., in which post he also is a vice chairman of the War Production Board. It was agreed at the time that he should retain his military status so long as it proved beneficial in carrying out his duties. In announcing resignation of his commission, Johnson made public a letter from Chairman Donald M. Nelson of W.P.B. to Secretary of War Simson. This said Nelson shared Johnson's belief that "it would be embarrassing to himself and the Army" if he returned to civilian status. Use Small Plants The S.W.P.C.'s aim is to make a greater wartime use of small plants. Much of its energy heretofore has been directed toward getting subcontracts on war work for them. Johnson told his press conference that he believed those small plants not yet converted to war work were the most suitable for civilian production. Discussing generally his views on production of civilian needs, Johnson said in a statement that essential civilian requirements are "essential war products in the sense that the United States cannot maintain its war economy without the production of many such items." "For example," he said: "a war worker whose electric refrigerator is out of order may lose half a day at the plant waiting at home for ice to be delivered so that food will not be spoiled. A simple civilian item, hitherto unobtainable, might fix the electric refrigerator. Thus, the worker returns' to full production and a growing cause of absenteeism is eliminated." Johnson & Johnson wins Gas-mask Contract When the government needed gas-masks in 1940, the Army asked U.S. manufacturers to bid on the contract. But none of the nine commercial gas-mask makers in exitence won the contract. Who did get the three avalaible contracts? Johnson & Johnson, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Firestone and Tire & Rubber Co 
1,000,000 Gas Masks February 5, 1940 Week after World War II got under way last September the U. S. Army decided to do something about its gas-mask situation. To bolster its own gas-mask assembly plant at Maryland's Edgewood Arsenal it asked U. S. manufacturers to bid on a new assembly plant to turn out masks for Army use. Winners of three contracts were not among the nine U. S. commercial gas-mask makers. They were Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Firestone Tire & Rub ber Co., and Johnson & Johnson, biggest U. S. surgical-dressing maker. Last week, on a site next to Chicago's Municipal Airport, workmen broke ground for the new Johnson & Johnson assembly plant. Under terms of its Army contract, the company will: 1) equip its factory to turn out 100,000 masks a month (300,000 on a three-shift, 24-hour basis); 2) make 10,000 masks during 1940; 3) at year's end turn over equipment and gas masks to the Army for the sum of $341,714. By Aug. 1 Johnson & Johnson expected the first masks to come rolling off the assembly line. At Fall River, Mass., the second gas mask maker (Firestone) is also at work under a $328,329 contract virtually identical with Johnson & Johnson's. Furthest advanced of all is the third maker, Good year, expected to swing into production within a week at Akron, Ohio, where it will turn out 5,000 masks. For the three companies the deal was designed as a labor of love. The contracts will meet expenses, leave no profit. The project is educational, designed to acquaint the manufacturers with war materials production. From their experience the Army expects to get accurate cost and production figures for use when war comes. Incidentally the Army will control three plants which can in six weeks make enough gas masks for the 1,000,000 soldiers that the U. S. mobilization plan expects to put in the field within six months after a declaration of war.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763475,00.html#ixzz0egQqNPSN
War Effort Results in Permacel Division Johnson's involvement in identifying products needed by the war effort resulted in the Permacel division of Johnson & Johnson inventing duct tape for sealing ammunition boxes. They simply took their existing cloth medical adhesive tape, added a waterproof plastic layer with a more aggressive adhesive and produced it in olive green to match the ammunition cans. In the 1920's a small Detroit druggist had uncovered and was selling Johnson & Johnson surgical tape to a car manufacturer who used the tape for masking two-tone paint jobs. By 1927 Johnson & Johnson recognized the market potential for tape products in the industrial market. A small department was formed to market "masking tape." Cellophane and paper tapes were soon developed for the industrial market. This new division of Johnson & Johnson was called the Revolite Corporation. In 1947 Revolite was renamed the Industrial Tape Corporation and in 1953 ITC became Permacel. (The name came from the brand-name "Permacel" , the first product shipped from its plant, a masking tape) In 1982, Permacel was acquired by Avery International, a self-adhesive label company. In 1988, Permacel was acquired by Nitto Denko. Permacel claims a number of firsts, First masking tape, First filament reinforced tape and patents, First polypropylene tape, First PTFE thread sealant tape, First colored and waterproof cloth tape, and First aluminum foil tape. ( Source, corporate literature). On March 31, 2009, Permacel announced that it would be closing its manufacturing facilities in Buena Park, CA and Pleasant Prairie, WI by September 30, 2009. 
Army cancels largeorder for red tape' NEW YORK (UP) June 27, 1944: The army has no use for red tape—499,980 yards of it. The army air forces materiel command has revealed the cancellation of a contract for that much red tape with the [J&J subsidiary] Industrial Tape corporation of New Brunswick, N. J., after finding that olive drab tape is better suited for sealing; shipments of planes against sea moisture. The New Brunswick firm will make the new olive drab tape, the army said. CORROSION PREVENTION OF STEET PARTS IN STORAGE AND SHIPMENT The following measures shall be taken to Prevent corrosion of steel parts which are to be stored or shipped: (1) On painted Parts where it is necessary to mask small unprotected areas for bonding, grounding, etc., these areas shall be masked prior to painting with non-hygroscopic adhesive.tape conforming to Specificatioo AN-T-12. Utilitape, manufactured by the Industrial Tape Corporation, New Brunswick, New Jersey, meets this specification. (2) All other unprotected surfaces shall be treated with a mixture of one part Varsol, manufactured by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and one part Ferrocote TF-349, manufactured by the Quaker Chemical Company, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Notes: All Exterior Finishes to be in accordance with U.S. Navy Spec. SR-2C and Bureau Aer Letter L47Oa Aet'E 2574'b{VS.
Robert Wood Johnson was the head of the famous Johnson & Johnson Company, a supplier of health care and baby products founded by his father. He was known as a humane employer, a wartime administrator, an author, a philanthropist, and a liberal business leader. His name survives today not only in the company itself, but also in the philanthropic functions of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Personal LifeRobert Wood Johnson’s life began on April 4, 1893, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, home of his father’s Johnson & Johnson business headquarters. A son of Robert Wood and Evangeline Armstrong Johnson, young Johnson attended Lawrenceville School and Rutgers Preparatory School but did not attend college, choosing instead to begin working for his father at the age of 17. Rising eventually to president and then chairman of the board, Johnson was dedicated to the company’s success and equally dedicated to the welfare of the employees. He declared in a 1947 speech, according to an article in Coronet magazine, that business should never forget the plight of ordinary workers. To ignore them, he said, “is as foolish as it would be to ignore public health, crime, and the need for education.” Apart from his heavy business commitments, Johnson found time for a number of hobbies. He enjoyed flying, beginning with an old biplane in 1919, then an early monoplane, an autogiro, and later his own company plane. He also enjoyed tennis and hunting but preferred yachting, winning several cups in competition. He once raced and cruised from Hudson Strait to the Caribbean and on another occasion crossed the Atlantic to Spain. Johnson also had a vital interest in Republican politics, once serving as the mayor of Highland Park, New Jersey. He felt that his experience in small-town politics taught him a great deal about human psychology; on one occasion, for example, he personally went to the home of a resident who had complained about uncollected garbage—and Johnson himself loaded up the garbage and took it to the town dump. Although he steadfastly refused to run for Congress in 1948, he maintained an interest in political issues throughout his life. In addition to his business and political interests, Johnson believed in the importance of good works. A practicing Episcopalian whose religion was more than just a tradition, he worked with ministers, priests, and rabbis to improve management-labor relations. He received numerous awards throughout his life, among them the People to People Award from President Eisenhower (1957), the Gold Medal of Merit from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (1959), the Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews (1958), and the Executive of the Year Award from the American College of Hospital Administrators (1965). He was a patron of the American Museum of Natural History and, most importantly, the initiator of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a major supporter of health-related causes. Those who wrote about Johnson during his lifetime portrayed an energetic man who constantly looked for new experiences. “The General,” as he was called after his wartime service, was well respected by colleagues and employees and had a strong devotion to duty. He was sometimes unconventional but had an engaging personality and a good sense of humor, which served him well even with political and business opponents. He is remembered today for his business successes and especially for championing small business and the rights of the individual. Johnson lived in Princeton, New Jersey, and had three wives: Margaret Shea, Elizabeth Ross, and Evelyne Vernon, to whom he was married at the time of his death on January 30, 1968. He had a daughter, Sheila, a son, Robert W. Johnson Jr. and five grandchildren. Career DetailsAs a son of the founder of Johnson & Johnson, young Johnson gravitated naturally toward his father’s company. Following the lead of Englishman Joseph Lister, who had identified airborne germs as sources of infection, the elder Johnson and his brothers had developed the first adhesive surgical plaster and tape and the first ready-made, sterile, sealed surgical dressings. The company filled a very real need. Before Lister’s discoveries, some hospitals reported postoperative mortality rates as high as 90 percent. Johnson & Johnson vastly improved products available for antiseptic surgery and post-surgical care, and the company fast became the best-known name in health care supplies in the United States. By the 1890s Johnson & Johnson was calling itself “The Most Trusted Name in Surgical Dressings.”
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