Robert Wood Johnson
Background
Robert Wood Johnson was born February 20, 1845, in Crystal Lake, Pennsylvania, the eighth of 11 children. He apprenticed at 16 at a Poughkeepsie apothecary, learning to mix medicinal plasters, before moving to New York City in 1864 to build a career in wholesale medication. In 1885 he heard antiseptic pioneer Joseph Lister describe how infection killed more surgical patients than the operations themselves, and the talk convinced Johnson that hospitals needed ready-to-use, factory-sterilized dressings rather than cotton and gauze prepared on-site which were routinely contaminated. He recruited his brothers James and Edward to build that product, and the three founded Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1886 with 14 employees, with Robert becoming the company's first president.