The Cooper Companies history

Gordon, who renamed the company Gordon Contact Lenses, Inc. in 1965, was renowned for his expertise in rigid lens design, but his most celebrated work involved the development of soft contact lenses.

In 1970, Union Corporation purchased Gordon's company, creating a new company named UCO Optics.

It entered the contact lens business in 1972 when it acquired British lens maker GlobalVision.

In 1980, Cooper Laboratories reorganized into three business groups: CooperVision, CooperCare and CooperBiomedical, with Cooper Medical Devices Corp. added as a fourth group one year later.

Again, Cooper Labs teetered on the brink of collapse, its interest expense rising to $25 million, or 65 percent of the company's 1982 operating profit.

Investors paid 35 times CooperBiomedical's 1983 earnings in the offering.

Montgomery stepped down in August 1988, leaving a company he had started 30 years earlier.

CooperSurgical was formed in 1990, the year it acquired Frigitronics, a technology company that produced an assortment of gynecological and ophthalmic products.

In 1991, the company's stock value plunged to $1 per share, which, together with a $6 million loss for the year, served as the telltale signs of a company in crisis.

What had once been a company with more than $600 million in annual revenue ended 1993 with $92.6 million in revenue, a total collected from its involvement in the mental healthcare market, the vision care market, and the women's healthcare market.

In 1996, CooperVision doubled its contact lens manufacturing capacity, increasing the size of its Scottsville, New York, facility to 38,000 square feet.

Another $6 million-in-sales company was acquired in 1997, when CooperSurgical purchased Marlow.

1998: Company announces the divestiture of Hospital Group of America.