Cooper Aerial Celebrates Forty Years of Excellence

October 26, 2005

By: Shaun Loretz, Director of Communications

For Forty years now, Cooper Aerial Surveys Co. has been in the business of giving excellent customer service with quality results. One standard that they live by is to devote themselves to the work at hand and never think something is impossible. Jeff Cooper, President of Cooper Aerial, puts it best:
Our commitment is the key foundation of who we are, not only to our customers, but also to our staff. It is with earnest action and forthrightness that we strive to serve to the highest of our capabilities. Even with state-of-the-art technology, our product is nothing without our sincerity to delivery the best. It is more than just words, it’s the actions we take and how we represent ourselves in our day to day lives with relevance to others.
This all started back before Jeff Cooper was five years old and would accompany his father, Bill Cooper, to the office and learned all about aerial mapping. It started in July of 1966, when Bill Cooper helped out a friend.

Bill Cooper acquired the mapping company from Mr. Paul Clouse, head of a civil engineering firm, located in Tucson, Arizona. They didn’t like dealing with the new surveying branch they added, so they gave it to Bill. He had done work for them and gained a positive reputation with the engineers. He had no money to purchase the company, so Bill gave Mr. Paul Clouse a promisary note. It was also agreed that the surveying branch would be a separate business, but Bill Cooper and Paul Clouse would be partners, 50-50, and this partnership went on for another thirty years. After renaming the surveying branch “Cooper Aerial Surveys Co”, Bill needed a plane. He found an old plane for sale and again, had no money to purchase such an investment, so he got the plane with yet another promisary note. In Bill’s own words, “I was so excited to finally have my own company and now I had a plane without paying a thing! I took my wife to the hangar to view the plane and what we saw was an old faded-out red Cessna180 with a flat tire, wires hanging out everywhere dragging on the ground, and the engine was loose. It was used for parachuting, so the inside was all messed up”. Bill found a gentleman who loved to fly and they agreed that he would fly for Bill Cooper for three years with a minimum of fifteen hours a week for flying and the pilot would even fix the plane into proper conditions. So started Cooper Aerial Surveys Co.

Work started slow, as with many new companies. Bill’s first contract came from selling some old vertical photos he had from 1953. It was a thirty dollar job for a real estate firm in Tucson. But slowly, business grew and Cooper Aerial did any job they could anywhere they could. Their partnership with Paul Clouse and his engineering firm helped them get some business. There was an excitement in the air around Cooper Aerial. Bill had a great interest in surveying and aerial mapping. He even captured his own photography. As he said, “We did work we liked for people we liked. The people in the industry are very good people. I loved what I did and so I loved doing my job”. This love for mapping solidified the company. As word of mouth spread, Bill got more and more contracts and after only ten years, the staff grew from one to around fifty people. Don King, employee for Cooper Aerial for the past 30 years, had a few things to say about Cooper Aerial. He said, “When I started, I went to work in a shopping mall with two small buildings; one for the photo lab, and one for the drafting and compilation of maps. After we grew some, we moved to a 5,000 sq ft building on Grant Rd. We held an open house where we actually landed the plane on the road itself. We had to stop traffic and everything. It was pretty exciting. It was good working for Bill and Paul. They were like father figures to me. In my opinion they were the greatest people to work for because they were all about the worker. If you worked hard and tried your best, you were acknowledged. It wasn’t about the money”.

Bill Cooper’s first employee was, and still is, a gentleman named Joseph Barbe. He has been with the company since its conception in July of 1966. It is said around the company that when Bill Cooper got the surveying company from Paul Clouse, Joseph Barbe came with the film. He started out creating mosaics in the photo lab and moved on to fixing machinery and doing electrical work. According to fellow employees, Joseph had a very photographic mind and could learn anything once shown. Now 75, he is still very active with Cooper Aerial and has saved thousands of dollars by being present to do the great work that he does.

Cooper Aerial has seen many changes in technology throughout the years. There were no computers in 1966, so everything was done by hand. The machinery was large and confusing and took hours to finish what might seem like the smallest task. It was a very rigorous business that was focused on quality control and a large amount of success relied on the staff, but the work was rewarding because it was something the staff enjoyed doing.

This joy for the job carried over into Bill Cooper’s own children. Being a father of three, he would bring them into the office and show them what he did. At one point, all three of his children worked for Cooper Aerial. Yet the only one who stayed with it was his youngest son, Jeff. His father states, “I remember Jeff coming into the office ever since he was five years old. He always enjoyed coming in and watching everyone work. I would even take him flying with me on the weekends. Our first job together was surveying about 25,000 acres of land out in Idaho for a mining company. It was a really good feeling standing on top of a mountain with my son. Jeff always had a smile on his face. He was a happy child, a happy teenager, and a happy adult”.

Jeff worked for his father for many years and eventually took over when his father retired. The current headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, was originally set up by Jeff and his two other siblings when he was fresh out of high school. Jeff, now 43, has done with Cooper Aerial what his father never thought was possible. He helped bring the aerial mapping company into the technological age and brought in new computers, the highest technology and the best employees to work as hard and happily as he does. Now 77 years old, Bill Cooper sits back and comfortably watches his son excel in this business and loving every moment of it. The excitement that was in the air when Cooper Aerial started is still there. Jeff Cooper is always buzzing around seeing what is new, what is exciting, and what will be challenging. Taking Cooper Aerial into new directions, Jeff Cooper has expanded their capabilities and reinvented the company over and over again. Celebrating forty years of excellence is something very few businesses accomplish. But with the desire to work the hardest you can and give the best product possible with heart, Cooper Aerial has lots of room to grow and many more years to do so.