Ecolab

Ecolab Inc., headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, is an American global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets. It was founded as Economics Laboratory in 1923 by Merritt J. Osborn, and renamed "Ecolab" in 1986.HistoryEarly years : 1923 - 1950sMerritt J. "M.J." Osborn founded Economics Laboratory in 1923 with the tagline "Saving time, lightening labor and reducing costs to those we serve." The company's original product was Absorbit, a product designed to quickly clean carpets in hotel rooms. This was soon followed by Soilax, a dishwasher soap. During the 1930s, the company expanded throughout the United States and sales reached US$5.4 million by the end of 1940s. It acquired the Magnus Company in the early 1950s, which gave the company access to Magnus's industrial specialty businesses - including pulp and paper, metalworking, transportation, and petrochemical processing.Transition to a public corporation and expansion: 1950s - 1986In the 1950s, international expansion of Economics Laboratory started, with the establishment of its first overseas subsidiary in Sweden in 1956. It became a publicly traded corporation in 1957, and continued to expand during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1979, it acquired Apollo Technologies, but in 1983 the acquired Apollo subsidiary was shut down.Ecolab Inc.: 1986 - presentIn 1986 the company changed its name from Economics Laboratory to Ecolab Inc.