Our story begins in Akron, Ohio, during World War II. Goldie Lippman was a supervisor in one of Akron's many rubber factories, manufacturing life rafts and rubber products for the war effort, where she 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 a shift in order to remove the graphite and carbon black. These harsh chemicals took a toll on workers’ hands, and Goldie and her husband Jerry set out to find a better solution. This kindled the spirit of innovation that led to the founding of GOJO in 1946.