Coolest Things Made in Missouri 2026: Precision gears

Shawn Cooper

Owners: Jim and Naomi Cooper, and Shawn Cooper
Employees: 16
Founded: 1994
Web: CooperGearMfg.com
Social: LinkedIn.com/company/cooper-gear-manufacturing/
2025 Revenue: Undisclosed
Product Pricing: $20-$85
Why is this the coolest product made in Missouri? Having this elite team making these critical precision parts used all over North America.

Family-owned Cooper Gear and Manufacturing Inc., with locations in Anderson and Grove, Oklahoma, makes precision gears that are integral components to industrial equipment that lifts, turns or rotates, such as overhead cranes and utility trucks.

SBJ: What does Cooper Gear and Manufacturing produce?
Shawn Cooper, president and CEO: We manufacture parts, primarily precision gears and computer numerical control machine precision parts, that go into industrial equipment throughout North America that lift, turn or rotate, such as winches, cranes, anything that would need to lift, rotate or pull.

SBJ: What’s an example of a product that uses your gears?
Cooper: If you’re in Kansas City and you see these overhead cranes and they have these hooks and things that pick up these train box cars, if you go into a construction site and you see a Terex Crane – those are the types of applications. Our parts also go to utility trucks, like a bucket truck, that work on the electrical poles. And then the winches you see on a wrecker truck or your normal winches that would go on the front of a Jeep. But mostly more of a hydraulic, heavy-duty-type winching or lifting. They’re used to dredge ponds. It’s just a variety of different machines that would require different gearing and different machine parts.

SBJ: What makes your product stand out?
Cooper: We have been in business for 31 years now, and we really do serve one of the most rugged types of equipment where they’re really utilizing the internal parts. The heart of a lot of the equipment is gearing, and it’s such a critical aspect of the whole part. So the past 30 years of our dedication to customer service and to be able to fill that service in that industry at that level.

SBJ: How does being a family business affect your ability to deliver to your customers?
Cooper: It’s been a really great opportunity for me. My mom worked in accounting. My dad worked as a gear manufacturer for Teledyne. I have a degree in accounting, but I got to learn a little bit from both of them, and it’s been a real blessing to watch them be able to fulfill their dream and then be able to be the next generation to take over the dream that they had and continue on with it.

SBJ: Are you in a crowded industry with many competitors?
Cooper: Yes. It’s very competitive, and it gets more competitive each year. Our biggest competitors are overseas. There’s a lot of local competition within the Midwest here, so we’re very competitive on pricing, and that keeps us in the game.

SBJ: What’s the story behind your motto of “blood, sweat and gears”?
Cooper: It’s the heart of what we do. We just go hard, and we really strive for customer service to make sure the customer gets the part when they want it, and to do that takes some blood, sweat and tears. That’s kind of our battle cry. We’ve got big, heavy parts and steel and we load machines, and we work hard and we enjoy what we do. And we really appreciate our customers.

SBJ: How does Cooper affect the local economy?
Cooper: We run state-of-the-art equipment so we continue to educate our employees as they cross-train and train on the newer technologies. We have an apprenticeship program where we work with students who are interested in manufacturing. They can get into a good pattern. They begin to make some money. They begin to understand that there are opportunities in this field.