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| 1923 M.J. Osborn starts EL |
With $5000 and vision, M.J. Osborn started what is now Ecolab |
In 1923, Henry Ford drove 44-year-old St. Paul, Minn., auto dealer Merritt J. Osborn out of business. Never down for long, M.J. developed a new product, Absorbit, which cleaned carpets on the spot and eliminated the need for hotels to shut down while their carpets were being cleaned. He called his new company Economics Laboratory (EL), reflecting its mission to save customers time, labor and money with "economic" solutions developed through "laboratory" research. |
| 1924 A Warewashing Pioneer |
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By 1924, M.J.'s secretary, Ida Koran, two young saleswomen and a production manager had all joined EL. M.J. incorporated the company and walked the streets of St. Paul looking for investors. Before long, he had $10,000 in the bank and was ready to expand. He acquired a nonsudsing cleaning compound from a chemistry student and soon discovered that it worked much better than ordinary soap in the mechanical dishwashers that restaurants were starting to use. Called Soilax, this product set the stage for EL's warewashing expertise. |
| 1928 More than chemicals |
| In 1928, EL invented and patented the first "wash boiler" dispenser, which injected Soilax into dishwashing machines. Less than a dozen dispensers were built due to high cost and a complicated design, but it marked the beginning of the company's expertise in mechanical technology. |
| 1929 Surviving the Depression |
| The stock market crashed in 1929, but EL carried on unscathed. Soilax was a superior product that hotels and restaurants were eager to buy. But as the Great Depression deepened, customers started falling behind on payments. EL almost went under in 1933. To stay afloat, employees forfeited a month's salary and took a cut in pay. The following year, the company netted a profit of $98.19. |
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