Robert Wood Johnson II

• Born: April 4, 1893
• Birthplace: New Brunswick, New Jersey
• Died: January 30, 1968
• Place of death: New Brunswick, New Jersey

American health care corporation executive

Johnson combined business savvy with a credo that placed the interest of consumers, employees, and community above those of shareholders to build the multibillion-dollar company Johnson & Johnson. Johnson also founded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest health care foundation in the United States.

Sources of wealth: Inheritance; manufacturing; sale of products

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; foundation

Early Life

Robert Wood Johnson II was the oldest of three children born to wealthy entrepreneur and druggist Robert Wood Johnson and wife Evangeline Armstrong Johnson. Young Robert was partially reared by a governess, and he attended the Episcopal Church with his mother and siblings, including an older stepsister. He and his father spent many hours together, going to business meetings at his father’s company, Johnson & Johnson, and on hunting trips. By age six, Johnson wore a tuxedo to social functions with his father. Johnson was encouraged to be a role model for his siblings. He was a serious young boy and quick learner, attending Rutgers Preparatory School when he was five years old. At age sixteen, his life changed dramatically when his father died from complications of Bright’s disease.

First Ventures

While in high school, Johnson visited his father’s factories and offices in New Brunswick, New Jersey, studying the family business. Johnson’s father and uncle founded Johnson & Johnson in 1886 to sell sterile sutures, dressings, and bandages to treat patients’ wounds. In the summer, Johnson worked at the company factory, now managed by his uncle James Johnson. Rather than go to college, Johnson decided to join the company, though his mother objected. He agreed to compromise by attending school and working part-time but soon the work hours became dominant. Johnson started in the company’s lowest job and worked his way up. On his twenty-first birthday, he was elected to the Johnson & Johnson board of directors, and the following year he was promoted to a supervisory role in the factory. In 1918, Johnson agreed to serve on the bureau council for Highland Park, New Jersey, and two years later he was the town’s mayor.

Mature Wealth

As stipulated by his father’s will, Johnson became a major shareholder in Johnson & Johnson at age twenty-five. When his Uncle James became president of the company in 1910, its sales revenue was almost $3.9 million. By 1920, that figure increased to almost $15.2 million. Johnson & Johnson continued to experience growth in its products and revenue. World War I brought additional business opportunities, with the company supplying bandage supplies to the American and Allied armed forces and to civilian hospitals. During the war years, the firm’s factory operated seven days a week in order to keep up with the demand for gauze, bandages, and adhesive plaster, and new products were produced to treat war wounds and minimize infection. In 1918, a worldwide flu epidemic struck the United States, killing up to 675,000 Americans. In response, Johnson & Johnson manufactured gauze masks to minimize the spread of the deadly virus.

After James Johnson became ill with leukemia, Robert moved to gain control of Johnson & Johnson’s common stock. The company continued to release new products to the market, such as toothpaste in collapsible metal tubes, baby cream, baby powder, and Band-Aid bandages. Johnson & Johnson aligned with drugstores in order to sell company products to consumers. Johnson dedicated more of his time to marketing and sales, and eventually he began marketing company products worldwide. In February, 1927, Johnson was elected to the company’s board of directors. The company was careful not to overproduce its products, which helped it remain solvent during the Great Depression. While employees at many other companies lost their jobs, Johnson & Johnson was able to maintain its workforce during the economic crisis.

When James Johnson died in October, 1932, Robert took over as president and general manager of Johnson & Johnson. Johnson decentralized corporate management, allowing company divisions to exercise autonomy, and the firm changed its name to the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Johnson also declared that businesses had a moral obligation to serve society.

He sought to obtain higher wages and to reduce work hours for his employees at a time when many workers were underpaid and overworked. He warned that the only way to correct the economy was to put people back to work, which he maintained was more effective than government welfare programs. His philosophy of corporate social responsibility distanced Johnson from many other industrial executives. In May, 1938, Johnson assumed the chairmanship of Johnson & Johnson’s management board. By then, company sales had risen from $11 million to $700 million under Johnson’s leadership.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, Johnson accepted a proposal from the New Jersey governor to assist the state’s war rationing program for civilians. During World II, he was a brigadier general in charge of the New York Ordnance District, and he continued to be called “the General” for the rest of his life. Johnson resigned from the ordnance district after President Franklin D. Roosevelt named him the vice chairman of the War Production Board and the chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation.

By nature, Johnson was a generous man, known for making a lot of money and giving large sums of money away to good causes. Johnson & Johnson remained lucrative, diversifying into new product lines, such as personal care, surgical packs, and baby care. In 1936, Johnson gave twelve thousand shares of the privately owned Johnson & Johnson stock to establish the New Brunswick Foundation. A short while later, he gave $1.2 billion from his personal estate to this organization, renamed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

Johnson was a man of great stamina and energy. However, when he noticed he tired more easily and sometimes had pain in his shoulder blade, he went to Roosevelt Hospital in New York for a checkup. An X ray revealed a tumor in his left lung that was inoperable. He was treated with antitubercular drugs but did not improve. He then started a five-week course of radiation therapy for his cancer. He died on January 30, 1968, at the age of seventy-four.

The executor of his estate found a U.S. Treasury bond for $1 million in Johnson’s safe-deposit box that was used to pay inheritance taxes, which obviated the need to sell Johnson’s stock in Johnson & Johnson. Johnson had willed his stock, valued at $300 million, to RWJF, and the remainder of his estate went to his wife Evie and his children. By the time his will was out of probate, the value of the stock had grown to almost $1.2 billion.

Legacy

Robert Wood Johnson II came from wealth that his father had earned through hard work and ingenuity. Johnson spent his entire career working in the family business, Johnson & Johnson, starting at the lowest job and attaining the top leadership position. Johnson established the company credo—a belief that business should serve the customer, employees, and community before its shareholders so that all parties could benefit. During his career at Johnson & Johnson, Johnson brought many useful health and personal care products to the consumer market worldwide. His legacy, the establishment of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, continues to benefit Americans’ health care.

Bibliography

Foster, Lawrence G. Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel. State College, Pa.: Lillian Press, 1999. Foster, the first public relations manager for Johnson & Johnson, provides the only biography of Robert Wood Johnson II. Includes photographs of key persons and places in Johnson’s life.

Isaacs, Stephen L., and James R. Knickman, eds. To Improve Health and Health Care. Volume 12 in The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Regularly published anthologies describe the various programs funded by the foundation, foundation policy, and health care issues. This volume includes chapters about expanding Americans’ health insurance coverage, the foundation’s approach to shaping public policy, improving health care in rural America, helping former prisoners reenter society, community-based dental programs, and the foundation’s efforts to address pediatric asthma.

Strom, Stephanie. “$500 Million Pledged to Fight Childhood Obesity.” The New York Times, April 4, 2007. Reports on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s pledge to fight childhood obesity and provides information about the stock donation with which Johnson established the foundation.