Gayle Cook, who alongside her late husband, Bill Cook, created the multi-billion-dollar family of companies now called Cook Group, died Sunday, the company announced. She was 91.
Gayle was the first quality-control employee of Cook Incorporated, a company she and her husband founded in the spare bedroom of their Bloomington apartment in 1963. That company, which manufactured less-invasive surgical medical devices, evolved into one of the largest companies in the state and is a globally known leader in life sciences and biotech innovation and manufacturing.
Gayle was a philanthropist known for her work in historic preservation—most notably for spearheading the restoration and preservation of the West Baden Springs and French Lick resorts.
“Gayle’s spirit of innovation was evident in everything she did. Whatever she was involved in, she left it better than she found it,” Pete Yonkman, president of Cook Medical and Cook Group, said in a written statement. “This was true of her philosophy for the ever-growing company, her extensive efforts in renovating historically significant places, and her daily interactions with other people. That’s her inspiring legacy that we will keep striving for.”
Born in Evansville on March 1, 1934, Gayle Karch earned a degree in fine arts from Indiana University and in 1956 and began an advertising career in Chicago. She married Bill Cook in 1957.
The Cooks moved to Bloomington in 1963 and launched their business, assembling kits for a revolutionary new catheterization process invented by Sven-Ivar Seldinger, known as the Seldinger method. The company continued to develop and add products, but didn’t top the $1 million annual sales mark until 1970. That grew to $100 million by 1983 and passed $1 billion in 2006.
Cook Group is now the fifth-largest private company in Indiana, posting $2.6 billion in revenue in 2024 and employing more than 13,000 people worldwide, including 6,800 in Indiana, according to IBJ research. Cook Group includes the flagship company, Cook Medical, as well as companies involved in the life sciences, property management and service businesses.
Bill and Gayle Cook were known for their avid support of IU, giving to the Jacobs School of Music, the School of Education, the School of Medicine and the Kelley School of Business, as well as the athletic department. In 2010, they gave $15 million to support a 67,000-square-foot basketball development center, then the largest single gift in the department’s history.
All told, Gayle was involved in roughly 70 historic preservation and economic revitalization projects, according to Cook Medical, including 17 in the area of Bloomington’s downtown square. The first property she restored and refurnished was the Colonel William Jones House near Santa Claus, Indiana, built in 1835 for Abraham Lincoln’s merchant employer and purchased by the Cooks in the 1970s.
But perhaps her most notable contribution to historic preservation is a southern Indiana icon once known as the eighth wonder of the world.
Gayle and Bill Cook spent an estimated $560 million to restore and maintain the West Baden Springs Hotel, a National Historic Landmark, and the nearby French Lick Springs hotel, according to Indiana Landmarks, a nonprofit that works to identify, restore and preserve culturally significant structures throughout the state. The West Baden Hotel reopened in May 2007, more than a decade after the Cooks launched restoration efforts.
In Indianapolis, the couple donated the majority of the $10 million needed to renovate the former Central Avenue United Methodist Church, which is now the headquarters of Indiana Landmarks.
Brad Ward, the nonprofit’s president, said Gayle Cook was an “enthusiastic and generous advocate for preservation.”
“Beyond the sheer number of properties they’ve restored around the state, Gayle and her family have elevated preservation in a very public way as both a social good and a practical economic activity,” Ward said in a written statement.
In 2007, Indiana Landmarks created the Cook Cup for Outstanding Restoration, an award given to property owners who transform historic buildings and make positive impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods. The organization said selection for the award is led by the couple’s son, Carl Cook, who also presents the prize at an annual awards ceremony.
“We are grateful beyond measure for the Cook family’s ongoing support and extraordinary commitment to preservation,” Ward said. “We will miss Gayle’s warm friendship, but we take comfort knowing that her legacy will live on for generations to enjoy.”
Gayle also wrote several books and served on numerous boards and committees related to Indiana history and preservation, including: the Wylie House Museum, the Monroe County Historical Museum, the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana and the Bloomington Antique Mall. She was also an appointee on the State Historic Preservation Review Board.
In 2019, Gayle Cook was the inaugural recipient of Bloomington’s Freedom of the City award, a recognition of her entrepreneurial contributions and hands-on contribution to the city’s ongoing vitality.
“While accomplishing big goals,” then-Mayor John Hamilton said, Gayle Cook “kept her hand in the details, quite literally—cleaning and sorting the donated jewelry for the annual history center sale, and personally painting ceramic tiles for several of the many landmarks she has saved.”
Bill Cook died in 2011. They are survived by their son, Carl, and his wife Marcy and their family.
Carl Cook has been CEO of Cook Group since Bill Cook’s passing. Other leadership will remain in place, the company said Sunday, with Yonkman remaining as president and Steve Ferguson as chairman of the board.