Kilmer House

With this week being National Public Health Week and April being National Volunteer Month, it’s a perfect opportunity to go back in time and let an early Johnson & Johnson employee who was on the front lines of public health improvement talk about some of his volunteer efforts in that area.  How can we do that?  We don’t have a time machine (despite a Six Degrees of Separation connection to H. G. Wells!), but we do have a first-hand account from one of our employees who spent many years volunteering to improve public health, starting at a time when the field was in its infancy.  That emplo

Some famous fathers and sons in Johnson & Johnson history: from left, Company founder Robert Wood Johnson and his son, General Robert Wood Johnson; Fred Kilmer and his son Joyce Kilmer When you think of Johnson & Johnson, probably the most enduring image that comes to mind is that of a mother and baby.  Mothers and babies have been a feature of our consumer advertising for 90 years, beginning with print ads and encompassing some very classic television commercials.  But fathers have also played a significant role in Johnson & Johnson history. Robert Wood Johnson Company founder Rob

While we generally think of benchmarking as a modern concept, it’s something that has been around for a long time. (The name has its origins in the horizontal markings surveyors chiseled into stone buildings centuries ago in Europe.)  For a business, benchmarking is critical, so it comes as no surprise that getting out of the office to see what others are doing is a longstanding tradition at Johnson & Johnson.  In fact, in 1899, Fred Kilmer went to Europe on a working vacation to do just that:  benchmarking. In 1899, the U.K. (home to Sir Joseph Lister) and Germany (home to microbiology p

Johnson & Johnson has been located in New Brunswick, New Jersey ever since a fortunate train journey brought Company founder James Wood Johnson to the city in January of 1886.  The former wallpaper factory building that Johnson rented met the needs of the new company, and New Brunswick turned out to be a very good location for a new business for many other reasons.  It had transportation (the railroad, the Delaware & Raritan Canal, the Raritan River, and stagecoach service), it had lots of potential future employees, and it was just bursting with suppliers.  New Brunswick in the late 1

Mysterious tunnels…links to the past…The Underground Railroad…secrets of our Museum building…a legend about hidden treasure…and some survivors from the founding days of Johnson & Johnson.  Now that the days are shorter and the winds are colder, it’s time to gather ‘round the blog and talk about some of the more mysterious aspects of our history.  In a post originally scheduled for Halloween, but moved back due to Hurricane Sandy, here’s a look at some myths, legends and mysteries at Johnson & Johnson.   Mysterious Tunnels Is there really a mysterious tunnel at Johnson & Johnson?