William T. Cooke, Founder
Vice President of Campus Publishing 1942-1952
President and CEO of Cooke Publishing Company 1952-1966
Retired 1972
John C. Ursprung, Jr., Founder
Founder and Vice President of Campus Publishing 1938
President and CEO of Cooke Publishing Company 1966-1977
Retired 1986
Daniel A. Solari, Founder
President and CEO of Cooke Publishing Company 1977-1988
Retired 1996
William T. Cooke, John C. Ursprung, Jr. and Daniel
A. Solari established Cooke Publishing Company in 1952. These founding members
had served as publishing consultants and executives of Philadelphia-based
Campus Publishing Company, which was the largest yearbook publisher in the
eastern United States during the 1940s.
At that time, publishing companies and representatives
were coming and going at an alarming rate. Cooke, Ursprung and Solari, with
fifty years of printing experience between them, intended to establish stability
and reliability in the publishing industry as they began their new company.
The company was founded on July 14, 1952 upon the guiding principle of providing
Integrity and Service, which has been the hallmark of Cooke Publishing
Company for more than fifty years. Our first offices were located at 21
South 21st Street in Philadelphia. After about a dozen years the need for
more space dictated expansion, so the company moved to 256 South 23rd Street,
housed in a graphic arts supply office building. After a fire at our offices
in September 1970 the company moved to the Philadelphia Main Line, and operated
in Devon for thirty-five years. In 2006 the offices moved to Warminster,
Pennsylvania.
Integrity and Service
Considering it more than a motto, the phrase Integrity and Service
was adopted as a policy that ensured that all of customers are treated with
honesty, care, consideration, and the best personal service available.
The founding fathers of Cooke knew, that in matters
of service, experience counts. For all of our years our representatives,
consultants and principals of the company have been former publication editors,
advisers, or professionals trained and experienced in graphic arts work.
They have come from varied academic backgrounds, but the overwhelming majority
of our representatives have studied in the field of education and have extensive
backgrounds in scholastic and professional publications. Cooke has the unique
distinction of having FOUR Columbia University Gold Key Awards presented
to our professional staff. This is a notable achievement and an even more
remarkable accomplishment considering the size of our company. Our reputation
for having an impact in the yearbook publishing industry is visible both
in and out of the classroom. You can find us teaching classes at Columbia
University during the CSPA publications conferences, at the Pennsylvania
School Press Association workshops, featured on television and magazine
stories, and profiled in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. Our professional
influence shapes high school and college yearbooks, recruitment, development
and promotional publications of private and public organizations, and the
recounting and preservation of the histories of church communities, as well
as social and professional organizations.
To work with a company with representatives of
such vast experience, expertise, and merit offers many distinct benefits.
Aside from the knowledge and skills you will develop through working with
Cooke Publishing Company, you will have the assurance that you have produced
a truly personalized, effective publication that best meets your specific
needs. To do all this, our representatives are assigned complete responsibility
for servicing each account; in that way the representative works with individual
customers, and also works directly with company production personnel to
implement designs and pages. Mr. Cooke believed that the customer’s
confidence usually is in the representative, as much as in the company,
and he understood the importance of personal relationships, trust and service.
Servicing means everything, from personally reviewing and accepting customer
material, to instructing our designers, and monitoring the progress of pages,
proofs, printing, binding and delivery. These procedures are still followed
today, making a Cooke representative unique among publishing salespersons.
It also means that each customer is handled with a name, not merely a number.
Integrity, however, does not take a back seat
to service. At Cooke Publishing Company we practice our time honored policy
of “awareness billing.” We are forthright in our quotations,
uniform from school to school and fair in explaining extra costs and options.
Pricing and billing are handled at an administrative level and representatives
are not at liberty to manipulate quotations. Customer committees and school
administrators and advisers are notified of costly changes to original specifications.
We strive to know and protect every customer’s budget, and not parlay
their desires into extra billing. Our final bills do not include rude surprises.
Our integrity shows when we ask each of our representatives to work for
the customer, as well as the company, to save time, check for accuracy and
have first-hand knowledge of every publication and its schedule.
