Lodwrick M Cook

Lodwrick Cook, the former CEO and chairman of oil giant ARCO, died at 92. Cook was a Louisiana native from Grand Cane, and his father William C. Cook was a sugar chemist. The family home became a bed and breakfast after being donated by Cook and his brother to the local historical society. Cook joined the U.S. Army after getting a degree in mathematics at LSU, then returned to LSU for a degree in petroleum engineering after serving in Germany during the Korean War. Cook worked for the Atlantic Richfield Co., known as ARCO, for nearly four decades. He began at the oil giant as an engineer trainee in 1956 and worked his way up the ranks to become president and CEO in 1985. He retired in 1995 as chairman emeritus. Cook was also the co-chairman of a fiber optics cable business in Monroe, which was later owned by CenturyLink, and a medical tech startup to help those with epilepsy. Sherri Cook, an attorney, cared for her father for the past seven years in Sherman Oaks, California. Once, she remembered that her sister, Patti Chambi, took a fall from a horse and broke her knee. Cook was on the next flight to be by her side. After a stroke three years ago, Cook, who is survived by five children and 10 grandchildren, had been bed-ridden.