By Khalida Sarwari
George Cooper, the founding winemaker of Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyards, has quietly passed into the annals of Saratoga history. He died on April 8, just one month shy of his 100th birthday, according to his family.
A resident of Saratoga since 1945, Cooper’s legacy encompasses not only local winemaking but also the military, NASA Ames and the Boy Scouts. He was active well up until his later years, skiing up until the age of 85. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.
Cooper was born on May 17, 1916, in Burley, Idaho, but grew up in Van Nuys and went to college at UC-Berkeley, graduating in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in mining engineering. During his college years, he spent time working in the Sierra Nevada gold mines.
It was at Berkeley where he met his wife, Saratoga native Louise Garrod, at a dance. The two married in January 1941.
He had taken a reserve commission in the U.S. Army to fulfill his ROTC obligation, but was called to active duty when the country entered World War II, getting assigned to the Army’s Ordnance Department at first before he was sent to England and into combat in May 1944, flying the P-47 Thunderbolt with the 412th Fighter Squadron. There he escorted American heavy bombers on raids into occupied territory. On D-Day, his unit provided combat air cover for the invasion. Cooper returned to the U.S. the following year, with 81 completed missions under his belt.
He and his wife returned to Saratoga and built their own house on a hillside of the ranch where Garrod had grown up, and together they raised their four children there.
In mid-1945, Cooper started working as a post-war research test pilot for NASA, where he went on to enjoy a lengthy career. He participated in 30 test programs of propeller-driven and jet-propelled aircraft and collaborated with Robert Harper to develop and refine an evaluation scale for pilots to quantify and report the handling qualities of the planes they tested. Called the Cooper-Harper Scale, it continues to be used as the worldwide standard for measuring aircraft handling qualities. He retired from NASA in 1973 as a chief of flight operations.
In his retirement years, Cooper started dabbling in commercial winemaking after spending years making wine for his family and friends. He sold his first commercial label in the spring of 1994 and eventually opened a tasting room where he and his wife enjoyed meeting people while pouring wine, inspiring other family members to join in the venture.
His volunteer record includes leading Saratoga Boy Scout Troop 40 for more than 10 years. The former Eagle Scout is known for taking his troop on summer backpack trips along different stretches of the John Muir Trail. He was a member of the Saratoga Men’s Club and even volunteered at the Saratoga Library.
Outside of Saratoga, he was a fellow and charter member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Society of Experimental Test Pilots released a statement saying the organization was “deeply saddened” to announce Cooper’s death.
“He played cribbage with several friends in the afternoon, as he has been doing once or twice a month for some time, and later that night he passed away,” the statement said.
Cooper was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, 12 Combat Air Medals and the French Legion of Honor in May 2012 for his leadership and courage during WWII.
He also received the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences’ Octave Chanute Award in 1954, the Flight Safety Foundation’s Admiral Luis de Florez Flight Safety Award in 1966 and the Richard Hansford Burroughs Test Pilot Award in 1971 for his contributions to aviation safety. In 1984, he and Harper were awarded the Wright Brothers Lecture for their work in developing the Cooper-Harper Handling Qualities Rating Scale. In 2014, Cooper was awarded the Society of Experimental Test Pilots’ J. H. Doolittle Award in recognition of outstanding technical management or engineering achievement in aerospace technology.
He is survived by his daughter Barbara and sons William, James and David; 11 grandchildren; daughters-in-law Doris Cooper and Kathi Hart; sister Marjorie Bougher; and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, daughter-in-law Nancy Goodnow Cooper and parents William and Mamie Kuhn Cooper.
A celebration of his life will be held at Cooper-Garrod Vineyard on May 21 at 2 p.m. Memorials may be made to the Saratoga Historical Foundation, P.O. Box 127, Saratoga, CA 95071 and Saratoga Foothill Club Historic Landmark Foundation, P.O. Box 2233, Saratoga, CA 95070.
