WD-40 celebrates its grand opening

The WD-40 Company moved its global headquarters to this building on Businesspark Avenue. (courtesy of WD-40)

WD-40 celebrates its grand opening

The WD-40 Company purchased a 42,000-square foot office building on Businesspark Avenue and moved its global headquarters to Scripps Ranch in August. Now, more than 100 employees are based in the new location. Today, WD-40 is celebrating the grand opening of its headquarters with a ribbon cutting and holiday party for its employees.

“We chose Scripps Ranch for our new headquarters because we thought it offered our tribe of employees a central San Diego location with easy freeway access and ample parking,” said Garry Ridge, who has been CEO of WD-40 Company since 1997. “The Scripps Ranch area offers many amenities for our tribe including great local restaurants, child care and park-like surroundings with nearby hiking, biking and walking trails.”

While the WD-40 Company has offices all over the world, with approximately 450 employees worldwide, its headquarters is right here.

“We’re excited to be a part of the Scripps Ranch community,” Ridge said. “We hope you will come to know us as more than just a company that sells products. WD-40 Company is a tribe of passionate, committed professionals, all dedicated to the same goal: to create positive lasting memories in every interaction we have.”

The new headquarters is big and modern.

“It’s a great space where there is lots of collaborative areas and areas for meetings and conferences,” said Wendy Kelley, director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications.

The name “WD-40” stands for water displacement, 40th formula. WD-40 was created in San Diego in the 1950s to stop corrosion on the skin of the Atlas space rocket. The chemists who worked on it tried 39 times to find the right formula and on the 40th time they were successful.

While WD-40 is a recognized brand, the company is not resting on its laurels.

“We have an entire innovation team … that develops new industrial maintenance products,” Kelley said. “So, in addition to the blue and yellow can that everybody knows, we have a line of products called WD-Specialist that address a lot of pain points that many industrial users have.”

Beyond industrial and automotive uses, WD-40 has many household uses such as removing gum stuck on shoes or other places.

“I just took some tree sap out of something this morning,” Kelley said. “It worked beautifully.”

WD-40 has something of a cult following based on its seemingly infinite amount of uses, some of them being very unusual and surprising.

“We have a very active online presence and our own fan club where we have a social media presence,” Kelley said. “There are over 2,000 known uses for WD-40 multi-use product and there are people coming up with more uses every single day, and we definitely embrace that.”