Diane Cook grew up in South Bend, Indiana. She wanted to attend Notre Dame, but it wasn’t admitting women yet, so she went to her father’s alma mater, Purdue University.
There, she met and fell in love with an aspiring aviation student, Gerald “Jerry” Cook.
“Our roommates were dating, so I got to know Jerry over bridge games, since my roommate was eager to learn,” Diane recalled. “My roommate ended up becoming obsessed with bridge, playing well into the middle of the night, so I focused on my studies to keep sane.”
She graduated from Purdue in 1972 with top grades and a business degree and married her college sweetheart the following year.
Jerry’s work in the airline industry prompted the young couple to move to Florida. Away from home, Diane longed for a close-knit community like the one she left behind.
In the following decades, she found that community at the University of Miami, earning a Master of Business Administration and building a distinguished career at the U before retiring in 2010.
Now, Diane and her husband are giving back to the University. They’ve included in their estate plans a multimillion-dollar commitment to establish the Cook Endowed Presidential Impact Fund. The fund will provide unrestricted support to high-priority initiatives deemed to have a positive impact on the Coral Gables Campus.
When Jerry started work with Air Florida in 1978, a colleague welcomed the couple to Miami with a dinner party. There, Diane met several faculty members from what is now the Miami Herbert Business School. Impressed by her background and penchant for hard work, they encouraged her to pursue her M.B.A.
Cook completed the program in 1980. By that time, she was working at the University as a financial analyst in the treasurer’s office.
“It was a good fit,” she said. “I had a great boss in Steve Ashman, hard challenges I could handle, everything just clicked. I also learned how important it is to have a village around you.”
When Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, Diane watched her community leap into action.
“My husband was out of town at the time, so I was alone for Hurricane Andrew. The University showed me a lot of care and concern, offering handymen to board up my windows and giving me a cell phone to manage in the aftermath,” she recalled. “The University played a big role in helping Miami to recover. People really helped in any way they could. I remember offering my home to a colleague who lost everything. I said, ‘Bring your wife, bring your dog, bring your parrot; my house is yours.’”
With renewed purpose, Diane continued to evolve her position at the University, over time becoming secretary to the Board of Trustees, vice president, and treasurer.
“I pitched new ideas to the board, memorized every fact and figure for my presentations, I oversaw all financial transactions, I fought for innovative retirement plan changes,” she said. “It eventually became the hallmark of my professional reputation—what I promised, I delivered.”
She even streamlined operations by introducing the first computer to her office in 1981.
“We bought it for our secretary to help with data input, and, well, she was terrified when she first saw it. It was an Apple computer with a tiny, black screen housed in a big, tan box,” she said. “At this time, people were still hauling around boxes of computer cards, each one programmed with the latest endowment numbers. The person responsible for shuttling it between the computer center at Unger and our office was terrified of dropping it since it would be nearly impossible to set it right again. It was no way to do business.”
In her three decades of service to the University, Diane earned several distinctions, including the May A. Brunson Award for her role in empowering female colleagues to harness new computer technology, the President’s Medal for meritorious service, and induction into the Iron Arrow Society.
The couple’s decision to make a planned gift was driven in many ways by Diane’s on-the-job training and gratitude for the community she found at the U.
“I wanted to support the University in perpetuity, and this enabled me to do that,” she said. “I cut my teeth on endowment management—advising existing endowments and determining the best way to use our resources—so I understood just how valuable this money could be.”
Today, the Cooks are enjoying a well-deserved retirement in Tucson, Arizona, where their days start with pickleball and end with dinner parties.
“Retirement has been a novel experience for me: I get a great night’s sleep every day; I hadn’t done that in years,” Diane laughed. “Life is good.”
