The Founder: W.H. Merrill and the Science of Safety [History]

Most people in the electrical industry are very familiar with the company known as Underwriters Laboratories (UL). Today, UL is a global corporation with 170 facilities, 4.5 million ft² of laboratory and office space, and 13,000 employees worldwide. The corporation oversees more than 1,500 safety and guidance documents and conducts nearly 100,000 product investigations per year. However, most people are not aware of UL's founder and how the history and origins of this organization are integrally connected with the birth of late 19th-century technology that helped create the world we know today.