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CHAPTER 121

Johnson & Johnson History on the Web

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By Margaret Gurowitz
Aug 19, 2010

General Robert Wood Johnson

Investor’s Business Daily just did a feature article called “Johnson & Johnson’s Big Shot” – about none other than General Robert Wood Johnson.  The article is drawn from two interviews, one with Larry Foster, the author of Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, a frequently quoted source on this blog; and one with David Morse, the head of communication for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Larry Foster worked with General Robert Wood Johnson:  he was hired by him to start the Company’s Public Relations department.   Here’s the link to the article:  http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=543441&p=2

Robert Wood Johnson II as a teenager -- about the time he started full time work at Johnson & Johnson

The feature article highlights the very different path to success taken by Robert Wood Johnson II.  The son of one of our founders, Johnson could have started at the top.  Instead, he chose to come to work full-time at Johnson & Johnson as a teenager…working side by side on the manufacturing floors with the Hungarian immigrants who at one time made up about 60 percent of our workforce in New Brunswick.  As Robert Wood Johnson worked his way up through the ranks, he developed a very different way of thinking that resulted in our philosophy of decentralized global expansion, and in the writing of Our Credo.

For blog readers who have visited Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters in New Brunswick, the former power house building in which the teenaged Robert Wood Johnson started his first full time job is still here.  Does anyone know which building it is today?

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