Up from Scratch

President Bert S. Cross of the 3M Co. -- nee Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing -- called up a vice president to ask a question: "Say, just how many divisions do we have now?" The answer is 21, and the otherwise precise president should be forgiven for not knowing, because his company has been going and growing like sixty. Sales have tripled since 1955, and last week Cross announced that volume for this year's first nine months jumped 10%, to a record $664 million.

Profitable Leaps. This bewilderingly diversified and remarkably creative company has become a darling of Wall Street by poking inquisitively into a bunch of unlikely products that stick, slip or scratch. Founded in 1902 to mine corundum for use in abrasive wheels, 3M struggled into the manufacture of sandpaper and then into masking tape. Its big breakthrough was the familiar Scotch Tape, which 3M invented originally as industrial masking tape. Scotch Tape still accounts for 17% of the company's sales, has led to 400 other varieties of tape, the latest of which, introduced to the public in September, is a nonirritating bandage that comes off the skin without pulling or pain. The firm also produces magnetic tape for recorders and movie sound tracks, turns out much of the nation's video tape. Altogether, it makes 27,000 products in 17 countries. Leaps from one unusual product to another are commonplace. "It's like Columbus sailing for a certain Indies," says Dr. Charles Walton, research vice president. "He didn't find the one he set out to find, but he did find a pretty good one." At 3M, researchers have gone from ordinary tape to reflecting tape to reflecting "paint"--and from that to a new liquid called Velvet Coating, which absorbs light and is useful for glare-proofing signs. One tinkering scientist in

1949 devised a method of making copies of documents by using infrared radiation which literally bakes images onto heat-sensitive paper. The company christened the process Thermo-Fax, and it has carried 3M into second place behind Xerox in the rapidly expanding copying-machine field, has led it to acquisitions of such firms as Revere Camera, Dynacolor film and, last summer, Italy's leading photographic firm, Ferrania.

Compulsive Competitor. Though it seeks to acquire products and markets from other companies, 3M is more interested in inventing its own. It supports 2,500 scientists and technicians in 44 laboratories, and each scientist can spend at least 15% of his time puttering on any project that he wishes. "If we are going to live within our philosophy," says Dr. Walton, "we have to allow for a certain degree of experimenting, authorized or not, as long as the experimenters don't blow the place up." The company gets more bright ideas than bangs. One of the most profitable currently is the Scotchpak polyester bag, in which frozen foods can be cooked. Originally designed for shipping grease-covered mechanical parts, the bag was a hit with such food processors as Green Giant and Birds Eye, which were able with it to add special sauces and seasonings to their foods.

Under the close control of 59-year-old Bert Cross, a compulsively competitive executive who seldom relaxes, 3M is practically debt-free, this year financed $60 million in capital improvements out of earnings. Cross originally made his name as manager of the new-products department, still likes to take home promising products, work out bugs in his basement workshop. So do other 3M executives. One vice president covered his basement with a rubber-nylon carpeting called Tartan Turf, added a hole to turn it into a highly marketable indoor putting green.

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