At Vassar College, Philip D. Cooke was exposed to what he considers some of the brightest minds he has encountered in his lifetime. He’s not referring to his professors or classmates, but to the inmates at Greenhaven Correctional Facility, where he spent Fridays assisting the soon-to-be-released in acclimating to life on the outside. “Prison can serve as a womb or tomb for people,” he says. “The men in the program used the experience to transform their lives. Even in the most trying times, they never allowed their spirits to be taken away from them.”

As the senior associate director of marketing and advertising at Queens Hospital Center’s Department of External Affairs, Cooke hopes the borough’s residents will see the same value in their own lives and in particular their health. “If we treated ourselves as good as we treat our
cars, we would live a lot longer,” says Cooke. “With technology, we can really start to improve the overall wellness in our community.”

Promoting the center’s state-of-the-art technology is just part of Cooke’s strategy to position the facility as a hospital of choice. He spreads this message through advertising and special events catering to the borough’s diverse population. Doing so is not just a matter of building the center’s bottom line; it’s also about improving lives in the community.

Prior to his current position, Cooke served as assistant chief of operations for former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green and as a research aide in the press office of Mayor David N. Dinkins. An avid jazz enthusiast, he hopes to establish an institution to educate people about the underappreciated art form. He is a firm believer in the law of attraction. “If you operate from a position of integrity you will attract the right people,” he says. “You need a team of good people to get to where you want to be.”