Hubbry Logo
search
logo
3M
3M
current hub
1660719

3M

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
3M

The 3M Company (originally the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) is an American multinational conglomerate operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, and consumer goods. Based in the Saint Paul suburb of Maplewood, the company produces over 60,000 products, including adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, personal protective equipment, window films, paint protection film, electrical, electronic connecting, insulating materials, car-care products, electronic circuits, and optical films. Among its best-known consumer brands are Scotch Tape, Scotchgard surface protectants, Post-it notes, and Nexcare adhesive bandages. 3M's stock ticker symbol is MMM and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. (NYSE), the Chicago Stock Exchange, Inc., and the SIX Swiss Exchange.

3M made $35.4 billion in total sales in 2021 and ranked number 102 in the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. As of 2021, the company had approximately 95,000 employees and operations in more than 70 countries. There are a few international subsidiaries, such as 3M India, 3M Japan, and 3M Canada.

In June 2023, 3M reached a settlement to pay more than $10 billion to US public water systems to resolve claims over the company's contamination of water with PFASs (so-called forever chemicals). It has been revealed that the company knew of the health harms of PFAS in the 1990s, yet concealed these harms and continues to sell contaminated products.

Five businessmen founded the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company as a mining venture in Two Harbors, Minnesota, making their first sale on June 13, 1902. The goal was to mine corundum, a crystalline form of aluminium oxide, which failed because the mine's mineral holdings were anorthosite, a feldspar which had no commercial value. Co-founder John Dwan solicited funds in exchange for stock and Edgar Ober and Lucius Ordway took over the company in 1905. The company moved to Duluth and began researching and producing sandpaper products. William L. McKnight, later a key executive, joined the company in 1907, and A. G. Bush joined in 1909. 3M finally became financially stable in 1916 and was able to pay dividends.[definition needed]

The company moved to Saint Paul in 1910, where it remained for 52 years before outgrowing the campus and moving to its current headquarters at 3M Center in Maplewood, Minnesota, in 1962.

In 1947, 3M began producing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an industrial surfactant and chemical feedstock, by electrochemical fluorination. In 1951, DuPont purchased PFOA from then-Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company for use in the manufacturing of teflon, a product that brought DuPont a billion-dollar-a-year profit by the 1990s. DuPont referred to PFOA as C8. The original formula for Scotchgard, a water repellent applied to fabrics, was discovered accidentally in 1952 by 3M chemists Patsy Sherman and Samuel Smith. Sales began in 1956, and in 1973 the two chemists received a patent for the formula.

In the late 1950s, 3M produced the first asthma inhaler, but the company did not enter the pharmaceutical industry until the mid-1960s with the acquisition of Riker Laboratories, moving it from California to Minnesota. 3M retained the Riker Laboratories name for the subsidiary until at least 1985. In the mid-1990s, 3M Pharmaceuticals, as the division came to be called, produced the first CFC-free asthma inhaler in response to adoption of the Montreal Protocol by the United States. In the 1980s and 1990s, the company spent fifteen years developing a topical cream delivery technology which led in 1997 to health authority approval and marketing of a symptomatic treatment for genital warts, Aldara. 3M divested its pharmaceutical unit through three deals in 2006, netting more than US$2 billion. At the time, 3M Pharmaceuticals comprised about 20% of 3M's healthcare business and employed just over a thousand people.

By the 1970s, 3M developed a theatrical blood formula based on red colorfast microbeads suspended in a carrier liquid. This stage blood was sold as Nextel Simulated Blood and was used during the production of the 1978 film Dawn of the Dead. It has since been discontinued.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.