Robert Wood Johnson II
| Robert Wood Johnson II | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Chairman of the board of Johnson and Johnson | |
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In office 1938 – ? |
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| President of Johnson and Johnson | |
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In office 1932–1938 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 4, 1893 New Brunswick, New Jersey |
| Died | January 30, 1968 (aged 74) |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Dixon Ross (m. 1916-1928) Margaret Shea (m. 1930-1943) Evelyn Paynter (m.1944-death) |
| Children |
Robert Wood Johnson III (1920-1970) Sheila Johnson Brutsch (b. 1939) |
| Parents |
Robert Wood Johnson I Evangeline Brewster Armstrong |
| Net worth | USD $1 billion at the time of his death (approximately 1/864th of US GNP) |
Robert Wood "General" Johnson II (April 4, 1893 – January 30, 1968) was an American businessman. He was one of the sons of Robert Wood Johnson I, the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson. He turned the family business into one of the world's largest healthcare corporations.
Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on April 4, 1893. His father was Robert Wood Johnson I, co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, and his mother was Evangeline Brewster Armstrong Johnson. Johnson grew up with three siblings: Roberta Johnson, John Seward Johnson I, and Evangeline Johnson. When he was sixteen, their father died, leaving him an estate of $2,000,000. He attended the prestigious Rutgers Preparatory School before dropping out to start working full-time at J&J. This gave him an insight into the workings of the company for the rest of his life.
Johnson became vice president at J&J in 1918. Johnson also had an abiding interest in politics, and served a term as the Mayor of Highland Park, New Jersey. He was elected president of Johnson & Johnson from 1932–1938, and became chairman of the board of J&J in 1938. Johnson also held a reserve commission in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps during the 1930s. At the outbreak of World War II, Johnson's work in identifying products needed by the war effort resulted in the Permacell division of J&J inventing duct tape for sealing ammunition boxes. J&J plant managers simply took their existing cloth medical adhesive tape, added a waterproof plastic layer with a more aggressive adhesive, and produced it in olive drab (OD) green to match the ammunition cans. During the war, J&J would become a major supplier for combat first aid kits and other military supplies. In 1941, Johnson started the Ethicon subsidiary.
In 1942, Johnson's reserve Army commission was activated, and he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and assigned to the Ordnance Department. That same year he was nominated by the Roosevelt administration to be vice-chairman of the board of the War Plants Corporation (WPC). When the Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC) was established as a division of the WPC in June 1942, Johnson was named chairman of the board of the SWPC., which regulated wartime production of military goods and defense items in smaller defense plants and businesses (500 or fewer employees) dispersed throughout the U.S. economy. The SWPC made direct loans, encouraged commercial lenders to make credit available to small businesses, and advocated for small businesses with federal agencies and larger corporate enterprises.
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