Yesterday, we commemorated the 125th anniversary of Johnson & Johnson with a celebration for employees at our World Headquarters in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Many of our operating companies around the world are marking this milestone anniversary in a variety of ways, and some are also celebrating their own operating company anniversaries this year in conjunction with the Company’s 125th.
In 1886, three brothers – Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson -- founded Johnson & Johnson to meet a huge unmet need in healthcare and society: the first large-scale mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures to make surgery sterile and save lives in hospitals. Today, a century and a quarter later, the world is a much more high-tech place, with smart phones, social media and health care technology that would have been unimaginable to our founders. And today, that little startup that began in a four-story former wallpaper factory in New Brunswick s a worldwide organization with approximately 116,000 employees at more than 250 operating companies in 60 countries. But one thing hasn’t changed in 125 years: finding innovative ways to meet unmet needs for patients, consumers and the community across the world.
Here are a few photos from our employee celebration yesterday:
Chairman and CEO William C. Weldon and other senior leaders join employees in ringing the NYSE opening bell on August 3rd
Confetti flies during the ringing of the NYSE opening bell to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Johnson & Johnson