Chris Martin
Chris was born and raised in Minden, Nebraska. As a child, he was always building something. Legos were his favorite toy because they allowed for endless ideas to be realized.

He attended CSU and his emphasis was in Metalsmithing and Sculpture. In sculpture class, he would build large kinetic steel sculptures. In Metalsmithing class, his favorite techniques were enameling, blacksmithing, chasing and repousse`, and fabrication.

After graduating college, he spent a year at a foundry working with wax and metal shaping. In 2003, he started working for Cooper & Cooper and learned how to set gemstones and carve wax models under Dan and Kathy. In 2007 Chris and his wife purchased the store from Dan and Kathy. Chris enjoys working with jewelry because it gives him a chance to work with his hands, as well as solve problems and create beautiful objects that enhance and celebrate peoples lives.


Sarah Martin
Sarah has lived in Colorado all her life. She has always been interested in creating small scale sculptures. When she was four, it was with cardboard and construction paper, but now she works with metal and gemstones to create fine jewelry.

Sarah attended Colorado State University were she became interested in the Metalsmithing program. Sarah also majored in Graphic Design, but spent the majority of time in the Metalsmithing studio. Throughout her studies she was exposed to many different techniques including enameling, chasing and repousse, raising, blacksmithing, casting, and her favorite, fabrication.

After school, she had an amazing opportunity to work for the accomplished jewelry designer, Susan Helmich. She worked with extremely talented and knowledgeable goldsmiths who helped build her fabrication knowledge as well as learning jewelry design, fine finishing techniques and stonesetting. Sarah learned stonesetting from Christo Kiffer, who is an expert stonesetter and goldsmith.

When Sarah and Chris were offered the opportunity to purchase Cooper and Cooper from Dan Cooper and Kathy Watkinson, they jumped at the chance. They are thrilled to now manage the company and will continue to uphold Cooper and Cooper’s reputation as a leading custom design jewelry store in Fort Collins.


Ty Mondragon
Ty has lived in Colorado his entire life. His interest in jewelry started, unbeknownst to him, at an early age. His home was filled with the piano being played by his mother and a multitude of artwork and toys made by his father. Ty has many fond memories of watching and working alongside his dad while he was working on his many projects. One of the many hobbies his father had was making silver jewelry for his mother. As he grew up, his interests veered far away from anything creative and became more interested in sports and science classes. It was in college when he found himself majoring in mathematics when he realized this path wasn’t right. He switched my majors to fine arts and took a metalsmithing class to fulfill requirements. He instantly fell in love with the medium and changed emphasis from sculpture to dedicate his life to the craft.

Ty graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s of fine arts in metalsmithing. Eventually, my studies steered his to work as a jeweler. Ty has now worked at Cooper and Cooper for two of the five years of his professional career. Along with finishing custom jewelry and repair work, Ty also carves, molds, and completes the cast wax models. Ty still loves the craft and tries to learn something new every day about it.


Katie Fox
Also a Colorado native, Katie was born and raised mostly in the Littleton area. Katie first encountered jewelry making as a teenager when her high school offered classes in basic silversmithing techniques and she was very intrigued. Later, while attending the Fine Arts program at Colorado State University, she once again found an affinity for metalsmithing and declared it her emphasis.

Before joining the staff at Cooper and Cooper in 2008, Katie was employed for four years doing independent wax work for bronze sculpture artists, and continues to do so on occasion. At Cooper and Cooper, Katie is involved with many processes: from wax carving to stone setting and especially creating custom work.


Khyber
Khyber has been a part of Cooper and Cooper team since Chris and Sarah bought the store. However, he only makes his appearance after hours. If you should see him after we’re closed, lounging about the seemingly empty store, don’t worry! He’s not pulling solitary guard duty, he’s keeping everyone company while they work in the workshop in back. Khyber enjoys swimming in the Poudre River, playing in the snow, and any activity that includes a frisbee or ball.