The Cooperman Company, as known as Cooperman Fife & Drum Co., is a second-generation family business founded by Patrick H. Cooperman in 1961. We currently have two manufacturing locations, in Centerbrook CT and Bellows Falls VT, with a total of 30 employees. Current Directors are Patricia Cooperman Ellis, Patrick M. Cooperman, James S. Ellis, and Patricia A. Cooperman.

Patrick H. Cooperman (1928-1995)
Pat Cooperman started out as a drummer in his elementary school band in Mt. Vernon NY. He served in the US Navy on an aircraft carrier during World War II, and joined his hometown VFW Post 596 when he returned from the service. Post 596 had a fife and drum corps, the Colonial Greens, and Pat joined in as a rudimental snare drummer. Pat Cooperman was also a woodworker and furniture maker by trade, and began to make his own drumsticks. Soon other corps members were asking for sticks; Pat's father-in-law was a fifer in the Post 596 corps, and he and the other fifers encouraged Pat to experiment with fifes as well. By the late 1950's Pat was making and selling handmade drumsticks and fifes throughout the New York and Connecticut area. As the years went on, an increasing number of drumstick models and fife designs were introduced, and Pat took in more and more repair work on the rope tension drums. He had a lot of ideas about how the rope drums could be improved, but was limited by time and space; his company was still a small home-based operation, while he held down a full time position as a Fire Department Captain for the city of Mount Vernon. In 1975 Pat began the process of retiring from his Fire Department job, and opened the full-time shop in Centerbrook CT as Cooperman Fife & Drum Co. Inc. All of his ideas for the rope drums were finally put into practice when the first set of his Liberty Model Drums was delivered in 1975. Pat continued to work on new designs and improvements for his instruments until he passed away in 1995. He was also intrigued by the growing popularity of frame drums, and started the Cooperman company on its present course of being a leader and innovator in that marketplace as well as in traditional fife and rope tension field drum.

The Connecticut Shop
The fifes, rope tension field drums, and drumsticks are made our shop in Centerbrook CT (the fife making is scheduled to move to our Vermont shop, however, sometime in 2002); shop supervisor is Jim Ellis. Each Cooperman drum is custom made to order, with the Liberty Model our top of the line design; this model is modified for orders where a historical period must be portrayed with authenticity. The shop also performs repair and restoration work on antique and vintage drums as well as contemporary instruments. Our concert and marching model drumsticks are made primarily of persimmon wood, and each pair is hand-matched for weight and pitch. Cooperman fifes are made in traditional Bb models with straight cylindrical bores, as well as concert models with profiled bores; we also carry the McDonagh brand concert fife for those who prefer a more piccolo-like instrument over the traditional fife. This shop opened in 1975, and has been in its present quarters since 1979.

The Vermont Shop
Native trees are sourced here in VT, then dimension cut at our sawmill and steam bent to form drum shells and hoops; shop supervisor is Patrick M. Cooperman. Raw material may be sent to the CT shop to be made into counterhoops and single-ply drum shells, or may be made into frame drums at the VT shop. The Cooperman Company purchased this VT operation from Earle Cowing in the mid-1980's. Under the trade name Maplecraft Manufacturing, Earle and his father before him had supplied the American music trade with drum hoops and other musical instrument parts since the 1920's. Cooperman handcrafts bodhrans, tars, bendirs, pandeiros, riqs, and a variety of other frame instruments, including a signature line of drums for Glen Velez, and is a leading innovator in the field with our patented designs on tuning systems and removeable jingle pins.

The Cooperman Company businesses
This overview of The Cooperman Company focuses on our musical instruments. There is a long tradition in the United States of musical instruments companies being involved in other trades that utilize similar machinery in order to justify the expense of sophisticated equipment, and Cooperman is no exception. In addition to the musical instruments we make directly for bands and musicians worldwide, we manufacture a line of traditional toys, games, and inexpensive musical instruments for the museum gift shop trade; we supply other manufacturers in the music trade with parts for their own brand instruments; and we make a custom line of wooden boxes for the gourmet food industry.