Company Profile
GOJO Industries, Inc.
Company Overview
GOJO Industries, Inc. is a manufacturer and international marketer and distributor of hand hygiene and skin care products for away-from-home settings. Product brands sold include PURELL, PROVON, and GOJO. GOJO has a history of leadership in improving well-being through hand hygiene and healthy skin, and has products and programs to kill germs on hands and solve skin care-related problems. GOJO markets are healthcare, foodservice, manufacturing, automotive, education, military and other “away-from-home” settings. Founded in 1946, GOJO is a privately held corporation, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, with offices in the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and Japan.
Company History
In a classic American entrepreneurial story, Jerome Lippman built a thriving business that started with an idea to solve one problem and grew to hundreds of products, dispensers and educational programs to improve well-being through handwashing and healthy skin.
Jerry and Goldie Lippman worked in Akron rubber plants during World War II. Dirty hands were a way of life for Goldie and her co-workers. Soils like graphite, tar and carbon black were difficult to remove. Chemicals like benzene got the dirt off, but they were dangerous to use and irritated the skin.
Jerry found a better, safer way for rubber workers to clean hands when he invented, in collaboration with Clarence Cook of Kent State University, a grease-cutting soap that could be used with or without water.
After the war, Jerry and Goldie turned their full attention to their heavy duty hand cleaner that they called GO-JO® (hyphenated during our early years). Jerry made the product at night and sold it during the day from the back of his car. However, Jerry quickly learned that garage owners thought his hand cleaner was too expensive to buy for their workers.
This feedback led Jerry to an idea to solve the cost problem. He developed a portion control dispenser which reduced the cost of clean hands to employers and expanded the hand cleaner market into factories and other commercial locations. Jerry was granted a patent for the dispenser in 1952, and it became part of a successful business formula merging chemical and mechanical technology. The GOJO brand came to dominate the heavy duty hand cleaner market and became the Company’s flagship product.
Inspired by Jerry’s leadership, inventive mind and creative spirit, the company now holds dozens of patents on mechanical dispensing technology and proprietary chemical formulations for hand hygiene and professional skin care products.
Today GOJO markets well-being products through distributors and retail stores who bring our dispensers, formulations, and educational programs to schools, manufacturing plants, hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare locations, restaurants, automotive service and repair shops, arenas, recreational facilities, commercial buildings and consumers around the world.
Notable Products / Brands
GOJO, PURELL, PROVON
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
Developed the world's most popular brand of instant hand sanitizer.
Benefits
Performance Bonus Program
Educational Assistance
Adoption Assistance
Product Discounts
Holiday Gift Cards