Gloria Watkins Cooper
Greetings, classmates!
Looking back, my life since Earlham falls into
ratherlarge segments…and two years ago, I embarked on a
third.
For the first twenty or so years, I was always a corporate wife, often a stay-at-home mother of two boys born six years
apart,and,frequently, an employee at a number of schools and businesses
ranging from a community college to a psychiatric hospital to an advertising
firm to a financial consulting business. During these years I also
completed my masters in English. My husband Gerry (EC’66) was employed by
Stanley Tools, and his various positions in finance and
manufacturing moved us to four different locations in the northeast,
the southeast, and the midwest.
.
In 1986, I began the second phase of my life’s
journey when, not desirous of returning to New England for a third time, Gerry
and I agreed that he should volunteer for an assignment in Taiwan where Stanley
Tools was making plans to open a tape rule factory, the intent being to knock out all the knock-offs coming out
of Asia. At that time, our older son Steve was a senior at Hope College so we
left him behind, but we took Dan, then a 10th grader, with us to Taipei where
we remained for nineteen years.
Though I had not taught school for over a decade, I
was fortunate to land a job as a H.S. English teacher at Taipei American School. All students had
to hold a foreign passport (not Taiwanese), so most were children of diplomats or businesspeople, and a large majority were of Asian
descent. Needless to say, teaching in a school where classes were small
and students paid attention in class, completed their homework every night, and
were highly respectful of their instructors was a teacher’s dream,
and I enjoyed everything about my job there (uh…except for grading all those
essays!). I was department chair for six years, worked on a Humanities
team for four, and was senior class sponsor for three. Together Gerry and
I were active in our international church and United Marriage Encounter.
Like many U.S. companies in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Stanley Tools continued to expand its
operations in Taiwan (before the exodus to China. Once the tape rule factory was up and running, Gerry was asked to oversee the
operations at a large socket and wrench factory Stanley purchased. Later, he was asked
to open the Stanley Buying Office which arranged for the manufacture of Stanley products in various factories all over Asia.
By 1993, Dan had graduated from DePauw and had
returned to Asia to begin his business
career, also in the tool industry. Though his Mandarin was fairly good, it
really took off when he met his Taiwanese girlfriend (now his wife), and his
language skills have secured his future in Asia. He and Sari now live in China
and they are expecting their first child this fall. Son Steve has lived
in the Washington, DC area (Fairfax,VA) for twenty years; he’s the father of two
and owns his own software consulting company of about fifty employees.
In early 2002, after 36 years of satisfying
employment at Stanley Tools, but disappointed by its new CEO, Gerry took
early retirement and then opened his own Taiwan-based
company doing the same thing he'd done for Stanley: sourcing tools
and other metal and plastic products in Asia for export to U.S.
customers. For life-long, obedient, and security-minded corporate
people like us, starting our own business was like jumping off a cliff, but
very shortly the company was doing well. When son Dan announced in 2004
that his company was transferring him from Taipei to Shanghai, we
pulled the plug on our Taiwan experience; one of the reasons we'd stayed so
long was because he and Sari lived only a couple of miles from
us. Both Gerry and I still loved our jobs, living in Taiwan, and the
opportunities for travel to nearly every country in Asia, but we understood two
things, that (1) he could better grow his business if we lived in the U.S.
where the customers are, and (2) the longer we postponed The Move,
the bigger burden it would become, so we packed up and left in the summer
of 2005.
Thus, two years
ago at 65, I launched into the third phase of my life, that
of retiree and traveling companion. Though neither Gerry nor I was originally
from the Washington, DC area, we always knew we'd settle there
since my parents (now deceased), my sister Carol (EC’60), and our son
Steve/family lived in the area. Having fully evolved into urbanites by residing
in a Taipei high-rise for nearly two
decades, we purchased a townhouse on the Potomac
in Old Town Alexandria, just fifteen minutes from downtown DC. Gerry
continues to run his company (http://www.asiatechsource.com from our home, and we make the journey to his Taiwan
offices and factories every two months for 2-3 weeks at a time; in
addition to sourcing products for customers, we’re now in the process of
opening our own packaging factory in central China. When not in Asia, we
frequently attend trade shows and call on customers, so we’re home only
about 50% of the time. Those days we are here, I faithfully
attend aerobics classes, work part time for an interior designer,
volunteer at our church office, and tutor at a local school.
The
long-term plan is for Dan to take over the Asian side of the business so
that we do not have travel overseas so frequently, but, given that we are both
in excellent health and have the energy required to cope with jet
lag, that is at least five years in the future. In the meantime, we
find our lives in the U.S. to be extremely satisfying,
and we take advantage of the many educational and cultural
opportunities the DC area provides us. Give us a call if you're
headed our way!
Gloria Watkins Cooper
17 Wilkes Street
Alexandria, va 22314
703-837-0281
Gerry & Gloria Watkins Cooper