About Bill Cooper
While in college he purchased run-down homes and ultimately eight apartment units in Grand Haven Michigan. Shortly after college (that he paid for himself), he took the $50,000 he had saved through his early ventures and started a quick printing business in Fruitport Michigan. Why quick printing? Because he happened to read an article suggesting that quick printing would be one of the fastest growing industries in the nation over the next five years. While researching the industry he happened across a story titled, The Greatest Success Story Ever Told about a quick print shop in Irvine California called, Kenny the Printer. That was good enough for him, and after visiting Kenny Fisher in California he started Billy the Printer in 1985. Billy the Printer soon grew into three locations.
In 1989 there was a large multi-purpose fitness facility that had gone through its fourth bankruptcy in nine years. Undeterred and feeling that the previous owners demise were primarily the result of poor management; he purchased the assets out of Bankruptcy Court, as the only bidder, He got an option to purchase on the building and renamed the business, Omni Fitness Club. The turnaround was quick and the Omni had a positive cash flow in each of the fifteen and a half years that Bill owned it. A group of area physicians were so impressed with the unlikely quick turnaround; they asked Bill if he would open an Omni Fitness Club for them in a large vacant former fitness facility they owned in Holland, Michigan. Bill sold them a franchise and management agreement and the Omni in Holland had a positive cash flow in its second month of operation, and made money every year throughout his affiliation.
Bill’s confidence grew, and he continued new business start-ups, and acquiring undervalued or underutilized assets. After selling Billy the Printer in 1995, he spent a few months researching the outdoor advertising business. Appreciating an enormous opportunity, he began building and acquiring billboards. His Big Time Communications grew to sixty signs. Excited about the potential in outdoor advertising, he bought an existing outdoor advertising company in Michigan with 133 billboards. Another larger company offered to buy Bill out, prior to Bill closing on the sale. The company was bought and sold on the same day and resulted in three satisfied parties. The money made on the sale helped Big Time Communications grow rapidly and the company was ultimately sold to a publicly held company at the end of 1998.
In the past twenty four years Bill has also started a corporate aircraft brokerage company, a Travel Agency, a professional hockey team and several other commercial properties and developments. He was the first director asked to sit on a new bank board, and remained a director for Capital Bancorp (CBC – NYSE) for twelve years.
Among his business accomplishments, Bill will say that he is probably the most proud that through all of the businesses, business cycles, and hundreds of employees, he has never had to lay off a single employee nor has he ever had a bill go unpaid.
He is the only person to be a Muskegon County Entrepreneur of the Year finalist three different years, with three different companies.
For years people that know Bill Cooper have encouraged him to run for public office. With the recent announcement of Pete Hoekstra’s retirement of Michigan’s Second Congressional District seat, Bill believes that this is the right time and right situation for him to run for public office. Bill along with many supporters believes that his experience, vision and unwavering commitment to fiscally conservative values are sadly needed in Washington. Bill intends to pursue this next phase of his life with the same commitment to learning, and the same passion and enthusiasm that he employs with everything he does. He believes that real leadership requires changing the polls, not just following the polls.
