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- John Lawrence Smith (February 10, 1889 – July 10, 1950) was a German-born American chemist, pharmaceutical industry executive, and sportsman. He was born Johann Schmitz in Krefeld, Prussia, in Imperial Germany. When he was three years old, his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Stonington, Connecticut. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1908 and the family legally changed its name to Smith in 1918. Smith first joined Charles Pfizer and Company at age 17 while he was studying at night at Cooper Union (he received his degree in chemistry in 1911), and would spend almost his entire business career at the Brooklyn-based pharmaceuticals giant. He rose to the positions of director (1918), secretary (1925), vice president (1929), president (1945) and chairman of the board (1949). His only absence from Pfizer, from 1913–18, came when he was a general superintendent at E. R. Squibb and Sons. In the early 1940s, he supervised Pfizer's successful development of a process for the large-scale manufacturing of penicillin and is credited as having led the transformation of Pfizer from a chemicals supplier to a research-based pharmaceuticals company. (en)
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- John Lawrence Smith (February 10, 1889 – July 10, 1950) was a German-born American chemist, pharmaceutical industry executive, and sportsman. He was born Johann Schmitz in Krefeld, Prussia, in Imperial Germany. When he was three years old, his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Stonington, Connecticut. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1908 and the family legally changed its name to Smith in 1918. (en)
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