Roper history

In 1906, George D. Roper acquired Trahern Pump Co.

Roper Industries' historical roots reach back to its founder, George D. Roper, and the company he started in 1919, the Geo.

NoconaBuilt with confidence since 1925.

In 1933, he co-founded one of the first marketing research firms, Cherington, Wood, and Roper.

His correct prediction of the 1936 Franklin Roosevelt landslide over Alf Landon helped establish scientific polling as a viable industry.

“A tabulating machine which does ‘everything but scramble eggs for breakfast' arrived last month to enable the school to make use of data from a series of public opinion polls donated to Williams in 1943 by Elmo Roper, head of the Roper Poll survey group.”***

From its establishment in 1947 to today, the Roper Center has played a key role in the development of the field of public opinion research.

York Lucci, writing in a report for the Ford Foundation in 1957, noted that the equipment and personnel required by survey research methods was the equivalent of laboratory work in the physical sciences, but hardly any universities had appropriate resources.

D. Roper Corporation corporate title was retained for several years until Roper Corporation was adopted as the company's new name in April 1968, by which time the gas stove manufacturing business originally founded by George Roper was rapidly approaching the $200-million-a-year sales mark.

In 1981, Roper Pump Co. reorganized to Roper Industries.

As the success engendered by the implementation of the product manager system grew, Key moved up Roper Industries' corporate ladder, becoming president of Roper Industries' primary revenue-generating engine, Roper Pump Company, in November 1985.

In 1986, he furthered his vision of the Center as a major institution for the understanding of public opinion by establishing Public Perspective, for which he served as editor.

In 1988, Roper’s lawn and garden products division was purchased by Electrolux.

Less than four years later, in February 1989, Key was named president of Roper Industries, assuming the company's presidential post at a time when annual sales hovered around $35 million and earnings stood at $2 million.

The first pivotal move in Roper Industries bid to become a larger, more globally-oriented competitor was executed a year after Key's promotion to president, when the company acquired Amot Controls Corporation and its U.K. and Switzerland subsidiaries in July 1990 for approximately $28 million.

After an 11-year hiatus, Roper Industries once again became a publicly-owned company in 1992, giving it the necessary capital to continue its acquisition and expansion campaign, which became increasingly international in focus following the purchase of Compressor Controls.

When shipments to GAZPROM began in April 1993, however, expectations were high and largely substantiated by year's end.

1994: Derrick Key is named chairman of Roper Industries.

Toward this objective, the company announced the completion of its acquisition of Houston, Texas-based Metrix Instrument Company in October 1995.

1996: The company acquires Gatan International, a manufacturer of electron microscopy control systems.

By December 1997, president Derrick Key announced that Gazprom would need to secure substantial funds by the middle of 1998, otherwise Roper would reduce its business or abandon the deal altogether. As a result, Roper canceled a $12 million shipment to Gazprom in October 1997.

In January 1998, Roper announced a $12.3 million shipment to Gazprom (financed by Gazprom's general credit facilities). In May 1998, Gazprom had secured financing through a wholly owned European bank for its future business.

2000: The company acquires Hansen Technologies, a manufacturer of valves and controls for refrigeration systems.

In 2001, sales in the fluid handling segment netted the company $125 million.

In the first quarter of 2002, Roper's analytical instrumentation segment had grown to net sales of $82 million.

In 2004, Roper Industries acquired TransCore.

In 2008, Roper acquired The CBORD Group, Inc. and Horizon Software International, LLC.

In 2012, Roper acquired Sunquest Information Systems, a maker of diagnostic and laboratory software.

In November 2015, the Roper Center moved to its new home at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, beginning a whole new chapter in the Center’s history of technological innovation, quality data curation, and robust support for social science research.

In 2016, Roper acquired ConstructConnect.

In 2019, the Center released new Roper iPoll, a significant rebuild of the venerable iPOLL application, featuring over 800,000 questions and 23,000 datasets.

In August 2020, Roper acquired Vertafore, an insurance software maker.