Feature: A Waxing Empire
The Johnson Business History
Elizabeth Harris
07/01/2006

In 1886, Samuel Curtis (S.C.) Johnson buys a parquet flooring business. It will soon take a backseat to a wax paste he cooks up in his bathtub. His son, Herbert Fisk, and grandson, H.F., would expand that sideline into the international firm, SC Johnson.

In 1954, H. F.’s son, Sam, joins the company, still largely a wood-care business. Within two years, his department has invented four new products, including Raid. His father skeptically asks, “Does it have any wax in it?”
SAMUEL CURTIS JohnsonHERBERT FISK Johnson
By 1960, Raid, Off!, Pledge and Glade account for 35 percent of domestic sales and spur the company’s diversification into many new products and new businesses.

As a father of young children in the 1970s, Johnson starts two businesses from scratch, in sporting goods and banking, which become Johnson Outdoors, the family’s only publicly traded entity, and Johnson Financial.
H. F. JOHNSON Jr.SAM JOHNSON
In 2000, Johnson becomes chairman emeritus of SC Johnson. His children have already begun assuming high-level management responsibilities for Johnson Family Enterprises.

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