John Barry (WD-40)

John Steven Barry (August 31, 1924 – July 3, 2009) was an American business executive who popularized WD-40, a water-displacing spray and solvent that had been created in the 1950s for use in the space program and spread its use in the consumer market.

Barry was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota, from which he received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He was designated to participate in an officer's training program after enlisting in the United States Navy, as part of which he attended Columbia University and Harvard University. After his military service, he attended the MIT Sloan School of Management, earning a master's degree in business administration. He had been hired by 3M after graduation, but was called to active duty in the Navy during the Korean War.

The product had originally been created by Rocket Chemical Company in 1953 as a degreasing and rust-preventing spray, with the name WD-40 coming from "water displacement, formulation successful in 40th attempt". One of its earliest users was Convair, which used the liquid to protect the outside of its SM-65 Atlas missiles. Norm Larsen, one of WD-40's creators, saw that Convair employees had found uses in their homes and started marketing the product in stores starting in 1958. Barry had no involvement in the company until he was hired in 1969 to succeed his father-in-law, Cy Irving, as its chief executive office and president, with one of his first actions being to rename the company WD-40 Company after its best-known product, reasoning that the company was not in the rocket business, after all.

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