Company Overview

S.C. Johnson & Son was founded in 1886 as a parquet flooring manufacturer. Today, it’s a leading manufacturer of household products, and remains a family-run, privately-held company. Founder Samuel Curtis Johnson’s great-grandson, Samuel Johnson, died in 2004—as one of the richest men in the United States. His immediate family owns about 60 percent of the company and descendants of the founder's daughter own the other 40 percent. S.C. Johnson’s noteworthy brands include as Drano, Edge, Fantastik, Glade, Pledge, Raid, Shout, Vanish, Windex, and Ziploc.

The company attributes its success in large part to a strong record of product innovation. S.C. Johnson was also a pioneer in the global marketplace, opening its first overseas subsidiary in Great Britain in 1914. The company currently maintains approximately 70 subsidiaries abroad and international business makes up about 60 percent of total sales.

S.C. Johnson’s personal care items, Skintimate and Edge (both pre-shave products), were sold to Energizer in May 2009. Although Skintimate and Edge were both leaders in the pre-shave field, S.C. Johnson said they decided to sell the profitable products because a manufacturer is better off developing an entire product line to accompany them, such as a razor blade brand to go along with the pre-shave solutions (think Gillette).  These two products were the last of S.C. Johnson’s personal care brands.

S.C. Johnson has also been promoting its green appeal, marketing more natural cleaners.  It has developed a Greenlist™ rating process, where each raw material receives a rating that helps S.C. Johnson go beyond regulatory requirements to make products better and more environmentally (and people) friendly. Since 2000, its use of fossil fuel is down 34 percent and greenhouse gas admissions are down 17 percent.