NORTH WESTMINSTER — I've had a fascination with fife and drum music and ceremony for as long as I can remember. So when I was put in touch with Patrick Cooperman and Patsy Cooperman Ellis - president and vice-president, respectively, of the Cooperman Company, which manufactures fifes and a variety of drums - I was reminded immediately of a July Saturday in 2008.
At the request of the state Department of Whatever, the three chambers of commerce along Route 9 - Bennington, Mount Snow, and Brattleboro - put on events to celebrate the official rebirth of the old Molly Stark Trail as the Molly Stark Scenic Byway.
I went full bore - even inviting the only local fifer I knew - and grabbed a few drummers to open and close the show on the lawn adjacent to the Brattleboro Farmers' Market.
To put me in the spirit to write this piece and to jog my visual memory, I also did some fife-and-drum research. I came upon a YouTube video of the Royal Swedish Army Band in a marching performance of Abba's “Dancing Queen.”
Guess what company in Vermont made the drums they were playing!
So it was with particular pleasure that I sat with Patrick and Patsy to talk about all music and all business Cooperman.
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Jerry Goldberg: Before we get going, I'd like to give our readers a primer on what Cooperman Company produces.
Patsy Cooperman Ellis: The rope-tension drums we make are snare, bass, and tenor drums, with historical roots in military marching music. They're called “rope tension” because the heads - what you beat on - are tightened for play by the ropes used to pull the counterhoops tight.
Patrick Cooperman: We also make frame drums - single-headed membranophone drums with a diameter greater than its depth. Variations are natively traditional in just about every culture and are believed to be of ancient origin. Some of the earliest examples are found in cave paintings in present-day Turkey and show up throughout history - in the Bible as Miriam's Tof and as depictions on ancient Greek vases.
P.C.E.: Cooperman drums are used by marching corps for both historical impression and traditional music - say, by the Fifes & Drums of Colonial Williamsburg. They're used by military bands for ceremonies, like by the U.S. Army Band “Pershing's Own.”
Also, they're used by symphony percussionists and by university and high-school percussion programs.
We also make traditional wooden fifes - side-blown instruments related to the piccolo and the transverse flute - and a line of drumsticks.
J.G.: I'm conjuring up an image and even the sound of fife-and-drum corps. But I'd like a bit more true color, please.
P.C.E.: The American fife-and-drum corps comes out of the European tradition - and passed to us through the colonists - of using fifers and drummers to signal commands in battle. It all started with Swiss mercenaries in the 15th century, who were influenced by the Janissaries, elite Ottoman Turkish infantrymen who served the Ottoman sultans.
P.C.: When gathered together these fifers and drummers formed a “corps” that performed both military and non-military music.
J.G.: Your company was started by the original entrepreneur in the Cooperman clan: your dad, Patrick, whose fascination with drums and drumming began as early as elementary school in Mount Vernon, N.Y., right?
P.C.E.: Yes, Dad not only played drums in the grade- and high-school bands, he also repaired and made them all through high school in the basement of the family home.
When he got out of the U.S. Navy in 1945, he went back to Mount Vernon and joined the fire department. Off duty, he made fifes and continued to repair and make drums. Before long he became the go-to fife-and-drum guy.
Whether he intended to do so, Dad had s0wn the seeds for what he eventually called Cooperman Fife & Drum.
Over the years, as we began making more than just supplies for fife-and-drum corps, we found that our clients were often confused by the words “fife and drum” in the company name. We'd hear that they'd hear “fiber drum” and “fire drum,” or even stranger.
So we shortened the name to Cooperman Company, which is what we use today.
J.G.: So he stayed in Mount Vernon for 30 years - until 1975, when he retired from the fire department. He established Cooperman Company in Centerbrook, a little village in the Connecticut River town of Essex. What made him move the company to Connecticut?
P.C.E.: Easy! The Connecticut valley - the land that runs along the Connecticut River from Hartford south to the Long Island Sound at Old Saybrook - is considered the seat of America's fifing-and-drumming tradition, where many of the oldest continuously operating drum corps are centered and where the “old style” music could still be heard.
As a member of a fife-and-drum corps, our family - with Dad performing - would go to musters there. So the Connecticut valley was the obvious site for his full-time fife- and-drum-building business.
J.G.: After 11 years, he decided to expand into Vermont. Your website mentions a Vermont sawmill called Maplecraft in North Westminster between Bellows Falls and Saxtons River....
P.C.E.: When I first came to work with Dad, in 1976, everyone knew there was a Vermont company making solid-wood bent hoops - part of the drum. That was way pre-internet, so it took us a while to track down Maplecraft Manufacturing. Dad and I visited the old mill, and he and the owner, Earle Cowing, became fast friends.
Soon, Cooperman Company was able to get these hoops from Maplecraft - a major coup. Cooperman bought Maplecraft in 1986 but kept both locations in operation as one business, dropping the Maplecraft name.
About 10 years later - in 2006 - we combined the two shops.
J.G.: So now Cooperman had a Vermont mill in the heart of great hardwood country.
P.C.: We use maple, ash, oak, cherry, and a little bit of poplar - basically the local hardwoods - sourced from within 30 miles of where we are right now.
J.G.: What drew you in and caused you both to join up?
P.C.E.: I graduated from New York University in winter 1976 and began applying to graduate schools. To have something to do while I waited to hear, I joined my family up in Connecticut and started working with Dad.
We'd all worked with him summers as teenagers, so it wasn't at all an odd thing to do. I also really liked working with him. His enthusiasm for the stuff we were making was catching.
And setting up this new shop - getting in on the ground floor and building something - was pretty thrilling.
Not much later, Dad had his first heart attack and couldn't work for about a year. In those days, open-heart surgery was a really big deal, and he needed to be strong enough for surgery.
I was still there and became more devoted to helping him build the company.
J.G.: Patsy, what did you study at NYU? What were you going for?
P.C.E.: I was a biology major with four minors in other sciences. I wanted to be a researcher.
J.G.: And you, Patrick?
P.C.: I'd done undergraduate studies at Hamilton College in upstate New York and then went to grad school at the University of Virginia for a Ph.D. in Renaissance drama. I left the program at age 24, but I was like a kid leaving high school at 17 - I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.
Like Patsy, I just fell into this path. It seemed like the right thing to do where a Ph.D. in English literature seemed increasingly less right.
J.G.: Can't fight DNA! What a testimonial to family. You operated the business in Centerbrook, Conn. and are now operating here in North Westminster, Vt. What's different?
P.C.E.: It became clear that it would be more efficient to run one location, not two.
Connecticut was good for all that direct personal contact with fife-and-drum corps. But the folks who worked up here loved Vermont, and it was vitally important for the sawmill to be in Vermont to source all this incredible wood.
It was obvious that the Connecticut operation would be the one we'd close.
We didn't leave Connecticut and the valley because we didn't like it there - we liked it a lot. We just saw that Vermont would work better for us.
J.G.: So you've been here a while now. How have you gone about recruiting?
P.C.: Finding the right employees isn't easy. It's a learning process for both the employee and the administration.
See, we make stuff. These are very hands-on jobs, and they're pretty specialized. It's not as though someone will come out of a technical training - whether a high-school or college program - and say, “I know how to bend wood. I'm familiar with steam bending.”
The process is so unique that even people who are trained woodworkers don't necessarily understand its rules. So, we really need to teach them - just like my dad taught me.
Generally, we have a great faith in people to use their practical knowledge and skills. If they choose to, we can teach them to be capable, even great, woodworkers.
J.G.: In the old days, there were apprenticeships, but that's gone with the wind now. So how do young people get to know about this opportunity for them in an industry right in their community?
P.C.: One of the gifts of small-town life is that everybody knows just about everybody. Closeness to the resources in terms of materials also puts us in touch with the resources in terms of people.
When we go to a café for morning coffee, we're also on the job, sourcing logs. On any given day, we might hear, “There's a beautiful woodlot being cut up in Windham. You ought to get in touch with so-and-so, the landowner or logger.”
Similarly we're in contact with folks who are doing that kind of work, who might say, “My son is graduating from high school next year. Could Cooperman use him?”
As a rule, our shop has always paid a few dollars more than minimum wage for new, untrained employees. We move them along as quickly as their learning and performance allow.
And we've been lucky. Some of our people have been with us a long time - over 20 years. We provide paid sick leave and paid holidays to full-time hires as soon as they start work.
We had offered health insurance benefits until the Exchange opened, at which time we were advised that our employees would most likely get a better selection and deal through the Exchange - which was true for many very small businesses and turned out to be true for us. We increased wages so that employees could make their own insurance choices and no longer have employer-sponsored coverage.
J.G.: You guys are good! How many employees do you have, and how big is the plant?
P.C.E.: Depending on the season, between 12 and 15. And the building is about 10,000 square feet.
J.G.: And it's in North Westminster on a state road between Bellows Falls and Saxtons River. Let's talk accessibility - for material and people to be able to get to you easily.
P.C.E.: When it comes to getting the logs and other material, this certainly has been an important location for us. It's easy to get the common carriers to make scheduled stops.
Also, we're still really not very far from the Connecticut valley. And we're not too distant from Boston or New York City, so the musical artists we work with can get to us pretty easily.
All in all, I think it's important, but I don't think it's a make-or-break. We could be in an even-more-rural part of Vermont or farther north, and it would still be fine.
J.G.: Talk about how Cooperman has grown here in Vermont. Did you - do you - have a business plan?
P.C.: Not like you're talking about. It's not as though there was a student sitting in a business school creating a business plan that says we need to be near this highway or that we need to be near these resources. Our vitality comes to us in a more long-term growth and an organic way.
I think it goes back to the very practical ways that Maplecraft's owner and our father approached the creation of this business and the way that Dad, especially, did the math, if you will - or “measured twice, cut once.”
J.G.: So what's business like today?
P.C.: As Patsy said, one market that's big for us is professional musicians - the drummers and fifers.
Another market is the museum gift shops. We make toys and games and other souvenirs for those venues - great brand extensions.
A third market is other musical instrument makers, even some who compete with us. We manufacture parts for them: bodies for tambourines or counter hoops or drum shells.
J.G.: I can see your dad's diversification policy written all over this!
P.C.E.: Yes. We try hard to service these different marketplaces, which, by the way, generally tend to go up and down with the fluctuation of the economy.
In harder times, it may be difficult to sell toys and games to families traveling to historic sites, but professional musicians will still need their instruments for playing and teaching.
We monitor what we do and when we do it, and we adjust. Of course, when the economy goes south, we can, too.
Our response is to keep an eye on our marketplaces to see how we can bolster one when another might be faltering. It's worked so far.
J.G.: So, second-generation entrepreneurs, what's new at Cooperman since your dad's passing?
P.C.E.: “Second-generation entrepreneurs.” Thank you for that! Well, Dad was a marching drummer in a fife-and-drum corps, which describes a very particular style of drumming. The fifes, drumsticks, and drums he made were all very much in that musical tradition.
Today's artists are looking for new models to serve them as they work in more musically diverse areas. Patrick and I were inspired to see how the manufacturing techniques Cooperman had developed over the years could be applied to instruments used in a wider range of performance - new opportunities for fifes and drums on the bigger musical stage - while still retaining traditional sound and response.
P.C.: I guess “innovation” is the word. Constant innovation.
Since our instruments are made to order, we'll go to an artist and say that we really respect their work and that we would love to have them play a Cooperman. We then ask what we can do to make the instrument of their dreams, and then go to work with that artist to do it.
Another word is “marketing.”
It's common in the music trade to work with artists who will then endorse our product. Maybe a musician already loves our instrument and they're out there using it. Then you do what you can to ensure that the next students will see this artist playing a Cooperman and hopefully ask about it.
No one wants to invest in something simply because they saw it on a performance stage, but you definitely want those marketplace conversations to happen - about why this drum and not that one.
P.C.E.: We're also seeking out other musical-instrument businesses that share a need for parts similar to what we make for ourselves. As we said, this is basically a custom business.
J.G.: How do you fight in the museum-gift-shop wars?
P.C.: Instead of simply presenting Cooperman Toys and Games, which is how we were identified in the museum market for years, Patsy created a sub-brand called History Lives, to enrich the buying experience. It said: “Here's this game or toy. Go ahead and play with it. Now, if you really want to 'live' it just like a kid in the 19th century, here's how.”
All our products, whether fifes or drums or toys and games, transport a person to another time and place. It's about connecting our product with its history, supplying information via websites or books.
A lot of our marketing to the shops is knowledge-based. The same with marketing the drums.
P.C.E.: We've also resisted the temptation to chase the marketplace that's been overrun with low-cost imports in the last decade or so, and continue to offer quality and educational relevance - accepting that our price point will be higher than some competitors'.
To the extent possible, we're determined to source our materials domestically and make as much of the product as possible here in Vermont.
P.C.: And we're painfully aware of how much every single sale matters. In a very limited marketplace, every sale that's not ours is competition. The bottom line is that every single sale actually feeds our employees.
When I hear about a customer buying a different manufacturer's high-end product or buying a low-end product because it will make do, those decisions, that competition, is very meaningful to us.
J.G.: Individuals, businesses, even families - we all have a story. There's a story out there about Cooperman Company. What do you think it is? Is it the one you want?
P.C.E.: My first reaction would be yes. I think we're quite successful, in our different marketplaces, at having people perceive us the way we want to be perceived, which is that we care very much about what we're making.
It's not just product to us. This is our lives. Our name is on it. That is really important to us. I think in the global sense, that story is out there.
P.C.: There's something else: people trying to figure out whether we're big or small, and how that distinction either works or doesn't work for them.
When Dad first started out, people loved that he worked out of his basement. Later, when he was able to make building drums and fifes his full-time occupation, people said he'd gone commercial and gotten too big. Imagine - too big, with only three employees.
Then we got into making frame drums - a tiny slice of the drum pie. And I get a call from someone in Europe who says, “I'm a struggling artist, and you're a big company. Can't you cut me a deal?”
And I think: “Hey, do you see the three guys working for us who can't afford to go to a sit-down eatery for lunch, who have to go to a gas station to buy a sandwich?”
P.C.E.: I'll never forget when our dad went to Disney when Disney World was just opening up and they said something like, “Well, we love your product line but maybe you're too small for us.”
Patrick's right. We're constantly caught in this “too big” or “too small” thing. Hey, it's like we just are what we are.
J.G.: OK, you're at an event and somebody finds out you have a business here, and they kind of corner you and say, “I've been thinking about leaving New Jersey. It's getting crazy down there and we're considering southern Vermont.” What'd you say?
P.C.E.: Well, if it weren't important geographically that they be somewhere then, yes, I'd encourage them to set up their business in Vermont.
When we decided to combine the Connecticut and Vermont operations, although I still loved Connecticut, I'd have to say that the state of Vermont bent over backwards to be helpful. The services offered by local business organizations like the BDCC were incredible. They reached out. They didn't wait for us to come to them.
We hadn't experienced that until we established the Cooperman Company in Vermont.
P.C.: I'd also like to put a shout-out for Jared Duval, director of the Vermont Department of Economic Development, and his colleagues, who helped us look at the big picture and where we're at.
J.G.: Some excellent and accessible resources in Montpelier, I know. One hears all that talk that Vermont's not friendly to business. Guess there are more than two sides to that story!
P.C.E.: Many, I'm sure. I'd also tell that person that if you come into Vermont to establish a business, maybe the only thing that could be a problem is finding workers, just because of the size of the population and who's available.
A full awareness of the skills your business needs would be important to look at, but that'd be true everywhere. We had trouble finding workers in Connecticut, as well, so I certainly wouldn't say that's a deciding factor for not coming to Vermont.
J.G.: What about moving here with a family, raising kids, and finding the cultural and recreational distractions? Isn't that part of it?
P.C.E.: My husband Jim and I love it. There's plenty to do - and Brattleboro's not far.
But our children were already grown when we came, so I haven't experienced that part of living here. I can say, though, that people certainly seem to be happy raising their children in Grafton - it's an amazing family community.
P.C.: I recoil when people read about business owners who say they moved from the city because they wanted to find the lifestyle that reminds them of an earlier experience up here, say on a ski weekend or at a summer camp, or something like that.
To me, you're setting yourself up if you think that you want to move your business to Vermont because you're going to find the paradise you think is out there. It's not - and we can make it hell or heaven, the opposite, which I learned from studying Milton, actually.
J.G.: Your Classical English Renaissance graduate education taught you something!
P.C.: That may be the extent of it! But please don't get me wrong. I love Vermont, but it took a while. I was going on 25 when I moved here, just out of grad school, with no idea of what I was going to do. My parents offered me a job, and I took it. I didn't come here to fulfill some lifetime dream of a lifestyle.
I had to adjust, but being here all these years I find rather wonderful. I live in the same house I moved into 30 years ago. It comes back to that organic long-term thing. We weren't into some romantic notion of operating a business out of an old mill. It just turned out that we are.
And that's what it is. It's not a high-tech start-up company that's re-purposing a falling-down old mill. Ours is still a falling-down old mill, yet a mill that's doing new things.
We're doing those Vermont-y things in a very authentic way, an organic way, the way that's right for us. Like our dad would.
J.G.: Fascinating. I so often hear about the schools, the arts, the many cultural opportunities, and the outdoors - hiking, biking, and skiing, that sort-of “Chamber of Commerce thing.”
P.C.: It depends on what you're looking for, doesn't it?
I'm reminded of a friend who grew up for part of his life in Vermont. He posts pictures on his Facebook page of cross-country skiing in Central Park!
So, yes, fun and the good life can be had in many ways in many places. But you might as well have them in Vermont. The maples are magnificent, the people are nice and interesting - and there's not a lot of traffic!