Profile · Racine, Wisconsin
Herbert Fisk Johnson III ("Fisk")
Fifth-generation chairman and CEO of S.C. Johnson & Son; born Racine; Forbes lists residence as Racine
$4.5 billion
Herbert Fisk Johnson III, known as Fisk, is the fifth-generation chairman and chief executive of S.C. Johnson & Son, the privately held consumer-products company still based in Racine. Born in Racine on May 19, 1958, he grew up inside a family firm that began when Samuel Curtis Johnson, a parquet-flooring salesman for Racine Hardware Manufacturing, bought the flooring line in 1886 and found that customers wanted paste wax more than floors. When his son Herbert Fisk Sr. joined as partner in 1906, the letterhead became S.C. Johnson & Son. The company remains private, still on Howe Street, and is not to be confused with Johnsonville sausage or Johnson Controls. Fisk earned four degrees at Cornell University and returned to Racine to run the business. The headquarters campus he inherited is the one his grandfather H.F. Johnson Jr. commissioned from Frank Lloyd Wright: the 1939 Administration Building and the 1950 Research Tower, now a National Historic Landmark that employees still use. In 2006 Fisk dove Manokwari Bay in Indonesia and located the wreck of the Sikorsky S-38 that had carried H.F. Jr. to Brazil in 1935 in search of carnauba palm; a replica of that flying boat hangs in Fortaleza Hall. Brands including Windex, Raid, Off!, Pledge, and Ziploc made the company global while the letterhead stayed Racine. In January 2017 he and his siblings pledged $150 million to Cornell to name the SC Johnson College of Business. Forbes lists Fisk and three siblings as shareholders who together own a majority of the company, with mid-2020s revenue estimated around $11.4 billion, and has placed his fortune near $4.5 billion with residence in Racine. The city claim is birth, lifelong company base, and the Wright campus that still defines Howe Street.