GOJO was founded in March 1946 on the heels of WWII. It was a time when women stepped into the workforce to fill roles that men had traditionally held. GOJO co-founder Goldie Lippman (pictured in 1958, above) was one of those women; she was a supervisor on the floor of a rubber factory in Akron, Ohio, then the “rubber capitol” of the world. Goldie and her co-workers discovered how difficult it was to clean their hands after a day’s work. The men who had worked in the rubber factories before the war had dipped their hands in chemicals like kerosene and benzene at the end of their shifts to remove the graphite and carbon black. These harsh chemicals took a toll on workers’ hands and the women simply weren’t willing to use them. So Goldie and her husband Jerry set out to find a better solution. Jerry worked with a chemist at Kent State University to develop the first-ever one-step, rinse-off hand cleaner that would effectively remove difficult soils and be safe for skin. Soon, Goldie and Jerry were building a growing company.
Goldie and Jerry worked out of the basement of her mother’s house and then grew into a converted gas station building. Goldie managed the operations of the fledgling business, including pricing, purchasing, and finance, while Jerry did the selling, production, and product improvements. Goldie demonstrated foresight by putting aside profits from successful years that helped to see GOJO through the lean ones. Her approach of planning for multiple scenarios and building the company for the long-haul has been essential to the success of our 75-year-old Family Enterprise through both good and hard times.
Women Who Shaped GOJO Culture in our Earliest Days
Long before most women were actively pursuing equal opportunities in the workplace, the GOJO Value of “People at the Core” – which inspires us to “uphold the essential dignity of all people” and to “see potential in every person and help each other grow” – gave women tremendous opportunity to both contribute meaningfully to the company and experience personal development.
The very first GOJO employee after Goldie and Jerry was Eleanor Morris. Eleanor mixed batches of GOJO Hand Cleaner, while Jerry was out selling, and Goldie managed the books. In the 1950s, two other women, Wave Swigert and Nancy Foose, supervised the GOJO factory, pioneering women’s leadership in the field of supply chain. Wave led dispenser production and Nancy’s team made soap containers. (Both Wave and Nancy had decades’ long careers – Wave retired after 50 years of service!)
These four women – Goldie, Eleanor, Wave, and Nancy – played critical roles in the early years of our Family Enterprise, establishing GOJO as a great company and establishing the place of women in leadership at GOJO.