INDIANAPOLIS — Doubt and disbelief hung over Cook Medical’s lofty goal.
Hiring 100% diverse contractors to build a $15 million medical-device manufacturing facility was considered difficult, if not impossible, by many in the construction industry.
Sure, government projects routinely set goals to have 15% to 20% of their contractors be companies owned by people of color, women, veterans or people with disabilities. But Cook Medical wanted to do much, much more with the construction of its 40,000-square-foot plant at East 38th Street and North Sheridan Avenue in the Devington neighborhood — an area beset by high unemployment, poverty and disinvestment and where 86% of the population is people of color, predominantly African American.
