Background
He is a great-great grandson of Latter- Day Saints (Mormons) Church apostle Heber C. Kimball and great-grandson of David Patten Kimball.
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Quentin LaMar Cook
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Education
He graduated from Utah State University in 1963 with a bachelor"s degree in political science and from Stanford Law School in 1966.
Career
Currently, he is the tenth most senior apostle in the ranks of the church. Born in Logan, Utah, Cook is among three children of Bernice Kimball and J. Vernon Cook. Raised in Logan, Cook attended Logan High School, where he participated in many sports, including football, basketball, baseball, and track.
At Logan High, he was a teammate of future NFL great Merlin Olsen.
The Cooks moved to Hillsborough, California, where they had three children. Later in his career, he served as president and chief executive officer of California Healthcare System (CHS) for three years and then as vice chairman of Sutter Health System.
Cook did pro bono work as a city attorney for 14 years. Cook"s work in privatizing hospitals in California involved some controversy.
As an attorney representing public hospital districts, he negotiated deals favorable to nonprofit healthcare corporations before leaving to become an executive with those corporations.
Critics claimed the deal quietly gave public revenues to private interests. In a lawsuit to regain control of the hospital, the districts alleged this was a conflict of interest and violated their public mission, but the court found that statute of limitations had expired. The hospital became part of CHS, which later joined Sutter Health, both of which held Cook as a top executive.
He was transferred to the First Quorum of the Seventy on April 5, 1998.
As a general authority, Cook served in the presidency in the church"s Philippines Area, as president of the Pacific and North America Northwest areas, and as Executive Director of the Missionary Department.
Achievements
Membership
Cook was called as a general authority and member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy on April 6, 1996. He was appointed as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy on August 1, 2007. On October 6, 2007, Cook was sustained as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, filling a vacancy created by the appointment of Henry B. Eyring to the First Presidency.
As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Cook is accepted by the church as a prophet, secretary, and revelator.
