About the Authors. Dr. William "Bill" Cook Dr. William Cook enrolled at the University of Illinois on a football scholarship in 1949, after which he immediately transferred to Northwestern University to study Biology, graduating in 1953. He received an Honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1992, and the following year received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Indiana University. Bill Cook served the Army as a medic, teaching Physics of Anesthesia to Army resident anesthesiologists in 1953. His business career began two years later as an aircraft engineering recruiter, and continued as a catalog editor and salesman for American Hospital Supply Corporation. By 1958 he co-founded MPL Incorporated, becoming the third largest hypodermic needle manufacturer in the United States. In 1963 he founded Cook Incorporated in Bloomington, Indiana, producing percutaneous wire guides, catheters, and needles as its first products with Bill and his wife Gayle as its only employees. The now conglomerate Cook Group, Incorporated went on to establish manufacturing facilities in the United States, Australia, Denmark and Canada, with sales organizations throughout the world. Forty-two companies form Cook Group Incorporated, manufacturing a wide range of products for interventive medicine. Other Cook corporations are involved in real estate, electrical products, investment, retail fabrics and antiques, and travel services. Mr. Cook was instrumental in the restoration and re-use of historical buildings in Southern Indiana, including five properties on the National Register of Historic Places. He founded the Monroe County YMCA, now the largest in Indiana, and is sponsor of the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps, a traveling and performing group of 128 young people. Cook companies provide significant financial support to universities, hospitals and physicians throughout the country for the advancement of education and medical research. Bill is an honorary Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, receiving numerous community service, conservation and historic preservation awards, business and productivity awards, and recognition from the American Heart Association, International Special Procedures Conference, and the Society for Cardiovascular and Interventinal Radiology. He has served on numerous boards of civic and business organizations. Mr. Cook has been the executive producer of the nationally televised Drum Corps International drum and bugle corps world championships for five years. He is a licensed jet pilot, and a contributor to various books and periodicals. He serves as president and chairman of the board of Cook Group Incorporated.