Rohm and Haas Company (NYSE: ROH), a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based company, manufactures miscellaneous materials. The company employs more than 17,000 people in 27 countries. The annual sales revenue of Rohm and Haas stands at about USD 7.99 billion.

History

The company was started by Dr. Otto Röhm and Mr. Otto Haas. Haas moved to Philadelphia and began the American side of the business on September 1, 1909, from an office on Front Street, while Otto Röhm remained in Germany to run a company that would eventually become Rohm GmBH. The American company grew rapidly as World War I approached, because of their initial invention, a synthetic substitute (brand name Oropon) for fermented dog dung, which was used for bating leather (part of the tanning process); leather was needed for the war in large quantities for belts and saddles.

The company again grew rapidly as World War II approached, as it manufactured Plexiglas, a clear plastic which was needed for aircraft canopies. They sold this part of the business in the late 1990s.

In 1999 Rohm and Haas acquired the Morton Salt company, which operates as a division of Rohm and Haas today.

The main products of Rohm and Haas are specialty materials, advanced chemistry that allows end use products to have a particular characteristic -- low odor, water-based paints, sunscreens with greater SPF functionality, or more powerful semiconductor chips, for example.