Gayle Cook

Age

81

Source Of Wealth

medical devices, Self Made

Residence

Bloomington, IN

Citizenship

United States

Marital Status

Widowed

Children

1

Education

Bachelor of Arts / Science, Indiana University

 

 

Gayle Cook is the owner of the Cook Group, a medical device company she co-founded with her late husband William ("Bill") Cook in a spare room in their Bloomington, Indiana apartment back in 1963. When Bill died in 2011, she inherited his stake and sits on the company's board. Their son Carl Cook is also involved in the business, which has offices in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia and revenues estimated at $2 billion. Cook's net worth has surged $1.8 billion over the past year due to a rise in the market capitalization of publicly traded competitors like Johnson & Johnson and Stryker Corp. Cook Group specializes in stents and catheters that contain pre-injected antibiotics. From 1996 to 2007, Bill and Gayle Cook spent $500 million to restore the luxury French Lick Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel in Indiana, adding a casino and a Pete Dye-designed PGA golf course. It will be hosting the 2015 PGA Senior Championship. The Cooks donated a reported $10 million to Northwestern University, where the couple endowed the Bill and Gayle Cook Professorship in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology.