Stephen Cooper opened Bear River Creative on January 1, 1998. Previously, he was director of creative services of Copithorne & Bellows (C&B), which became one of the world's most respected B2B and consumer technology public relations firms. He joined C&B (now part of Porter Novelli) when the agency was in its infancy, and played an integral role in many of its most successful communications initiatives.

These included the worldwide launch of HP's palmtop PC line (a joint announcement with Lotus Development Co.); the Fibre Channel Initiative (involving HP, Sun Microsystems and IBM); and the HP sub-notebook PC product line (a co-announcement with Microsoft). Stephen also helped HP introduce its color DeskJet and color LaserJet printers.

Cooper graduated with distinction from McGill University (Montréal). He then embarked on a journalism career with weekly and daily newspapers located in the Boston area. He served as campaign press secretary to Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Francis W. Hatch Jr., and was editor-in-chief of AdEast, a highly respected regional advertising commentary, before joining the professional staff of Miller Communications (now Miller/Shandwick). There he assisted in the opening of Miller’s West Coast office in Los Angeles in 1985. In 1988, he left that agency to join C&B.

A resident of California for ten years, Stephen now serves clients worldwide from his office in the coastal town of Marblehead, Mass., about 15 miles (25 km) north of Boston’s Logan Airport.