Commencement Speaker
Mr. Joseph C. Cook Jr.
Founder and Principal of Mountain Group Capital, LLC
Joseph (Joe) Cook is the Founder and Principal of Mountain Group Capital, LLC in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a committed University of Tennessee College of Engineering alumnus and is past Chairman of the COE Board of Advisors, where he has served as a member for over 20 years.
Originally from Chattanooga, Cook was the first member of his family to graduate from high school or attend a university. He funded his college studies by working as a co-op student and also received support from an alumni scholarship.
Cook graduated with honors from UT in 1965, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering. He was also a University Torchbearer, a designation reserved for outstanding academic and personal achievement.
After leaving UT, Cook accepted a position with Eli Lilly and Company, a pharmaceutical company located in Indianapolis. He spent 28 years with the company serving in a number of senior positions including head of engineering, vice president of production and group vice president of global operations.
Cook left Lilly in 1993 to begin a second career as a strategy consultant to the biotechnology industry. In 1998, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, a small publicly traded biotech company, requested Cook to come on board as chairman and chief executive. During his time at Amylin, Cook was instrumental in directing the San Diego based company through several difficult years during the development of two new drugs for people with diabetes. In 2002, Cook engineered a collaboration with Lilly to develop and commercialize one of the drugs, Byetta, which is now currently on the market. In 2003, Cook left the CEO post at Amylin shortly afterwards but continues to serve as Chairman of the company's Board of Directors. Recently, Amylin opened a major biotechnology manufacturing operation near Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 2003, he and his wife Judith returned to Tennessee, where Cook joined with his son and son-in-law to form Mountain Group Capital, LLC, (www.mgcfund.com) a company that is focused on acquiring controlling interests in manufacturing and value added distribution companies primary located in the southeast.
The Cooks established the Judith E. and Joseph C. Cook Jr. Engineering Scholarship Endowment in 1997 to help deserving engineering students. In 1999, Cook received the COE's prestigious Nathan W. Dougherty Award.
Mr. and Mrs. Cook divide their time between Nashville and their second home in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Their children are Joseph C. Cook III and Christine Singleton, and they have five grandchildren.