Gojo Industries

Type	Private
Industry	Consumer goods
Founded	1946 Akron, Ohio
Founder	Jerry and Goldie Lippman
Headquarters	Akron, Ohio, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Joseph Kanfer, (CEO) Marcella Kanfer Rolnick (Vice Chair) Mark Lerner, (President and COO)
Products	Cleaning agents, hand sanitizers, Foam soap dispensers
Revenue	US$ 83 million
Number of employees	2,000
Website	http://www.gojo.com/
Footnotes / references

GOJO Industries, Inc., is a privately held manufacturer of hand hygiene and skin care products. Its best known product is Purell instant hand sanitizer. The company was founded in 1946 in Akron, Ohio, where it is again headquartered after a period in Cuyahoga Falls. GOJO introduced Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer in 1988, and its Provon brand name in 1989.

GOJO was founded in 1946 in Akron, Ohio, by Goldie and Jerry Lippman. Goldie worked at the Miller Tire Co. rubber factory during World War II where graphite, tar, and carbon often got on her hands, as well as the hands of other employees, and was difficult to remove. Jerry worked at the Goodyear Aircraft plant. Both came home covered in sticky black carbon. They disliked what the cleaners used to clean their clothes so they set out to find an effective cleaning product that could be used without water. Goldie and Jerry worked together with Professor Clarence Cook from Kent State University’s chemistry department to formulate a heavy duty hand cleaner. They called it GOJO Hand Cleaner and sold it to rubber workers. Prior to their product, chemicals such as benzene were used to remove soils, but these irritated the skin. After the war they began marketing to automotive service facilities. They quit their factory jobs and started GOJO.

The company's first name and product was GoGo, Goldie's nickname, but another company had already used the name, so the founders came up with GOJO, with the "G" standing for Goldie and the "J" standing Jerry.

GOJO invented a liquid soap dispenser in 1950 to dispense their product in limited quantities after realizing that users were using much more than was needed to clean their hands, hence causing buyers to think the product was too expensive. Jerry Lipmann filed a patent for this portion-limiting dispenser in 1952.

In 2004, Pfizer acquired, from GOJO, the exclusive rights to distribute Purell in the consumer market, while GOJO Industries retained the rights to existing industrial markets. The Pfizer Consumer Healthcare division, soon thereafter was acquired by Johnson & Johnson (on June 26, 2006) moving the consumer market distribution rights of Purell into their portfolio, and thereby creating an agreement between the two independent companies. In 2010 GOJO bought the brand back from Johnson & Johnson.