Be prepared to work hard for years, sign lots of non-disclosure agreements, and secure a key to a secret bank vault if you want to join the select few get to see this notebook, which contains… an ancient alchemical recipe? A spell for a witch’s brew? Instructions for making an elixir of eternal youth? No, something even more powerful: the original formula for WD-40!
There’s a club in San Diego that’s perhaps more exclusive than Soho House and harder to get into than some of the most elite colleges in the country.
It requires a special key, nondisclosure agreements, passage through a bank vault and, typically, an executive title. The drinks don’t flow, members don’t rub elbows with notable people and chefs aren’t filling plates with tasty bites. The only perk is knowing the secrets of the world’s most famous lubricant. And yet, for those in the know, there’s no greater privilege.
“Actually getting in there, it was like getting into Fort Knox, quite frankly,” said Steve Brass, a recent inductee.
Brass is chief executive at WD–40, the more than 70-year-old company behind the red, blue and yellow cans used for everything from loosening bolts to coaxing a boa constrictor out of a car engine compartment and removing gum from turtle shells. He was admitted around 18 months ago to the small society of people who have seen the product’s secret formula—a feat that came more than three decades after joining the company.
‘It was pretty strict security,’ says Brass.
The handwritten formula is kept in a lockbox at an undisclosed Bank of America location in San Diego. It’s only left a bank vault three times in the past 30 years.
There was the time then-top executive Garry Ridge rode into Times Square on the back of a horse wearing a suit of armor with the formula in hand to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary at Nasdaq. An armored vehicle moved it—or rather moved Ridge, who was handcuffed to a metal briefcase holding the formula—from one bank vault to another in 2018. And most recently, in the summer of 2024, Brass and finance chief Sara Hyzer got a peek while signing paperwork at the bank.
That viewing involved a couple weeks’ notice, several nondisclosure agreements and securing a key held only by the company’s top lawyer. All for a few minutes with a notebook holding the 40th attempt at a formula—and the 39 failed attempts to get it right.
The notebook itself is a “The Spiral” Sight Saver Stenographer’s Notebook, which was probably made in the 1950s. (WD-40 was introduced in 1953, so that timing seems about right.) I see these “The Spiral” brand notebooks on EBay pretty often, but despite having a large collection of spiral notebooks, I’ve never owned one from that brand. They were made by a company called Westab, which was acquired by Mead in the 1960s. Westab, based in Missouri, was formerly called the Western Tablet Company. They were also known for the Big Chief tablet, used by many schoolchildren until around 2001. I grew up on the East coast at a time when stationery was produced by regional companies, so The Spiral and Big Chief notebooks probably weren’t sold in my area.
I love that the company has kept the original notebook all these years, rather than just copying the formulas over to some other format. It’s great when corporations value their history and preserve the fascinating artifacts that are part of it.
Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal (if you can get around the paywall): The Secret Society of People Who Know the Formula for WD-40