Gorman Gilbert and Bert Cooper

W&W Steel Endowed Professorship Places Emphasis on Basic Sciences

Attending Oklahoma State University is a family affair for the Coopers.

With 12 family members representing three generations of Cowboy alumni, a gift to celebrate a lifelong friendship with their beloved alma mater was a unified group decision.

“All of us really enjoyed our years at OSU, and we appreciate that relationship as an ongoing one, which is richly rewarding even today,” said patriarch Bert Cooper.

Cooper was the first among his family to enter OSU in 1947 from Enid, Okla.  An active participant in his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, Cooper made the most of his college years complete with tales of capturing alligators and jumping into a frozen Theta pond!  Despite a busy social calendar, Cooper remained focused on his studies and graduated in four years with a business degree.

“OSU was a great time for me, and I grew up substantially in four years.  The social skills, education and maturity I received at OSU is something I have valued and applied even 60 years later,” he said.

Upon graduation in 1951, Cooper accepted a position with a fledgling steel company W&W Steel based out of Oklahoma City.  Fifty-five years later as the company’s chairman & CEO, W&W Steel is one of the top three structural steel fabricating companies in the country.

Additionally, the company is credited with providing steel to some of the nation’s most notable buildings: New York Times office building in Manhattan, the upcoming construction of the Dallas Cowboy Stadium and hometown favorite Boone Pickens Stadium.

As the success of the company grew over the past five decades, W&W Steel became proactive in researching methods to benefit engineering and construction areas.  Their quest for innovative discovery eventually led back to their roots.

“We decided that greater emphasis needed to be placed on the basic sciences with the educational system.  Our company stepped up to be a sponsor of that cause,” said Cooper.

Those words were magical in the ears of Gorman Gilbert, civil engineering department head. 

“W&W Steel has been supportive, innovative and approachable in terms of its support of this project,” said Gilbert.  “Our vision is to raise the level and prominence of our program so that we may compete with the country’s best civil and environmental engineering professors and graduate students.  This gift positions us one step closer to our goal.”

“Gorman is a bulldog, incredibly persistent, and we have tremendous respect for him,” said Cooper.

Cooper recounts getting to know Gorman well in the last four years and forging a friendship with the professor who demonstrated strong ethics and a desire to bring the department and engineering college to national prominence.

In winter 2006, Cooper, with the support of his family and company behind him, took the first steps to turn Gilbert’s dream into a reality with a $500,000 endowed professorship in Gilbert’s honor to benefit the civil engineering department.

“We, as alumni and businesses, have a responsibility to help the university recruit the types of students that want to advance prominently in their field and to place their school at the top of the chain.  We see this gift as a stepping stone to making that happen,” said Cooper.

The gift will be matched dollar for dollar by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

“The university is there for one purpose: to educate.  We need to take care to see that our students excel and ensure we’re bringing in top professors to enhance that education,” said Cooper.

“Our family feels that we’ve been fortunate in both business and our personal lives to be able to make this gift,” said Cooper.  “Our hope is that other individuals will move in the same direction to improve academics at the university as they are able.”

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