BATAVIA, Ohio — Cooper Steel of Ohio has joined the Clermont Chamber of Commerce as its newest member, opening a structural steel fabrication operation at 2565 Old State Route 32 in Batavia.
The company specializes in structural steel fabrication for large-scale projects across the manufacturing, distribution, aerospace and commercial sectors, according to the chamber.
Cooper Steel traces its roots to 1960, when J. Kenneth “Kenny” Cooper began welding jobs out of the back of his truck in Tennessee while working at a tire plant. The side business grew into Cooper’s Steel Fabricators Inc., which incorporated in 1980 with Kenny as founder and president and his wife, Faye, as secretary, treasurer and steel purchaser. The company, still family owned, is now led by Kenny’s son, Gary Cooper, as chief executive officer.
Cooper Steel expanded beyond its Tennessee and Kentucky base with a Virginia facility in 2017 and an Alabama facility in 2019, and it opened an additional fabrication plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee, in 2025. The new Batavia operation extends that growth into Ohio.
The company is not new to Clermont County. Cooper Steel fabricated roughly 3,500 tons of structural steel for Nestlé Purina’s $550 million pet food factory in Batavia, the company’s first new plant built from the ground up since 1975. The job required more than 150 truckloads of material on a compressed 291-day schedule, with beams up to 80 feet long needing to be hot-dip galvanized at secondary facilities to meet the timeline.
“Clermont County is gaining another business in the manufacturing and fabrication space, and we’re excited to welcome them to Batavia,” the chamber said in a social media post announcing the new membership.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Clermont Chamber of Commerce.