It's all upside

Chair, Mark Cooper, reflects on 50 Years of Capricorn

We’ve got financial growth; we’ve got membership growth; we’ve got more things that we offer Members. We’re 50 years strong and we just keep getting stronger.

Like many Members, Mark Cooper first heard of Capricorn not long after opening his business, when an industrious Area Manager knocked on his brand spanking new workshop door.

“I went into business in September 1995 and John Rundle, who was the Area Manager at the time, came to the workshop on what must have been my first or second day that I was open,” Mark said. “He said to me, ‘Are you a Capricorn Member?’ and I said, ‘What’s Capricorn?’

“He explained to me that you buy parts through your Capricorn account giving you the ability to purchase parts from hundreds of parts suppliers across Australia without having to apply for trade accounts with each individual supplier, you get Rewards Points and you can buy shares, you get dividends on your shares, and the other value propositions of Capricorn. And I said to him, ‘Well that sounds wonderful. What’s the downside?’ And he said, ‘There is no downside.’ So, I signed up pretty well as soon as I opened the door.”

Fast-forward almost three decades and Mark can not only tell you anything you want to know about Capricorn and how it operates and the value it provides to Members, he’s also played a big hand in guiding its development.

Mark is the director and owner of the Cooper Group which owns a number of automotive business brands in Tasmania including Cooper Automotive, which has a string of service centres under its banner. In October 2013, Mark joined the Capricorn Board as a non-executive director. In 2019, he became the Chair of the cooperative.

With all that insight, what does he make of Capricorn’s 50-year anniversary?

“So, when I think of 50 Years Strong, I think of surviving those near-fatal wounds in the early days, where they almost went ‘let’s call it quits’, and then being able to grow into a financially successful organisation with an ever-growing membership. We manage to do that at a very high level. If Capricorn does something, we do it properly. We’ve got financial growth; we’ve got membership growth; we’ve got more things that we offer Members. We’re 50 years strong and we just keep getting stronger.”

Capricorn works, Mark says, because it has never lost sight of what Members want. That value proposition he first learned about from John Rundle all those years ago is still there. Indeed, it’s bigger and stronger than ever. But a part of that strength, which is perhaps not recognised often enough, is the power of the Capricorn community. Being an independent workshop owner, running a small business, can be a heavy burden and, sometimes, a lonely pursuit. Mark said Capricorn’s network, its conventions, its gala dinners and other events provide a valuable opportunity for Members to get together, talk, and share.

“The convention is a great place to have a chat with people,” he said. “You soon find out that the problems that you’ve got in your business are the same as the problems they’ve got in their business, and understanding how they tackle those problems and grabbing ideas off each other— that’s the community part of Capricorn to me.”

Mark’s time as a director of Capricorn comes to an end in October next year. How does he reflect on his time on the board?

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it,” he said. “It’s a lot of work and there’s a lot of information you need to be across to do the job effectively, but one of the bigger benefits, I think, is you get to work with and meet some really clever and interesting people— not only around the board table but Capricorn’s management, executives and CEOs, and the wider team. They’re very polished and highly educated individuals.”

Highlights included Capricorn achieving $2 billion in Member transactions in 2019, and the electric vehicles study tour to Europe in 2022.

“That tour did a lot in terms of shaping Capricorn’s thoughts around how we help Members transition into the electric vehicle space and I think we’ve done a really good job of starting that journey,” he said. “Capricorn is in a great position to be able to support Members through that industry change. I’ve been working closely with the team pushing in that direction because it’s the future and we need to make sure that we’re future ready.”

On a personal level, Mark said he’d “learned a hell of a lot” from being on the board, which had also helped him become a better business owner.

“I’m certainly proud to have been a part of Capricorn’s journey, and to actually be present for the 50 Years celebrations is exciting,” he said. “It’s a great organisation and it has just gone from strength to strength.”

After three decades, including more than a decade on the board and five years as Board Chair, did Mark ever find the downside of Capricorn?

“No, there was no downside,” he said. “John was absolutely right.”