Welcome to OWs in the USA

 

Old Wulfrunians in America Inc. was established to provide a forum US based OWs so that they could celebrate their commonality –  attending Wolverhampton Grammar School - and to explore ways of supporting the school to ensure it can continue to meet the needs of students now, as it did when they were in attendance.

Specifically the aims and objectives of the group are as follows:


Membership of OWs in the USA is open to all former students who are based in the USA and as the group develops we hope it will offer some of the following:

Directors of the Charity 

Robin Cooper is the President of the Old Wulfrunians In America charity. It is through his dedication, drive and great generosity that Wolverhampton Grammar School is now able to fundraise effectively in the USA and we wish to thank him for that. Working alongside Robin is Mr Nigel Blower who has helped drive the momentum of the group forward. Nigel is the Secretary of the charity. Mr Vincent Darby, Head of WGS is the third Director of the OWs in the USA charity.

 

Robin Cooper

Robin attended WGS from 1949 - 56. From WGS he went to Imperial College, London, 1956-1959, becoming an Associate of The Royal College of Science in 1957 and gaining his B.Sc. in 1959.

 

 His postgraduate studies continued at Imperial College and Queen Mary College. Following his work on the synthesis of naturally occurring carotenoids under Professor B.C. L. Weedon, Robin was awarded his Ph.D. in 1962.

 

His postdoctoral research first took him to the USA in 1963 when he was appointed Visiting Fellow at the US Army Research Laboratories, Natick, Massachusetts.

 

In November 1965 he began working for Lily Research Laboratories based in Indiana, the state in which he still resides. His career at Lily continued until his retirement in 1997, during which time Robin became respected as one of the most pre-eminent research scientists in the field of pharmaceuticals.

 

With 40 patents to his name and an extensive portfolio of published papers, Robin has spoken at venues around the globe during his thirty year career. 

 

A life long cricket fan, Robin is now President of Cooper Consulting which provides assistance in the drug discovery and drug development process.

 

Nigel Blower

Nigel attended WGS from 1975-1982. Focusing on sciences at A Level, his main out of school activities involved backstage work for play productions.

 

During his electrical engineering degree at Bradford University, Nigel was  sponsored by Marconi Communications in Chelmsford, where he worked for two years before moving to Satellite International, where he worked on projects for the European Space Agency.

 

His career took a detour (his own words) in 1992 after joining Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) as a management consultant. After travelling all over the UK on various engineering related assignments he took an assignment in Philadelphia in 1997 and never looked back.

 

Marrying Philadelphia girl Julie, in 1999, Nigel left  Accenture in 2003 to avoid the five days a week travel schedule and to spend more time with Julie and son Aaron, born in 2002. Currently working in IT consulting Nigel now lives just outside Philadelphia.

 

Nigel still follows Wolves and although he is still getting used to having a son with an American accent , when in England they both attend Wolves games and dad is pleased to report that during last year’s World Cup, Aaron proudly wore his England shirt!