WWU alumna Amelia Cook receives Enterprising Woman of the Year award

Western Washington University alumna Amelia Cook is the recipient of a 2026 Enterprising Woman of the Year award from Enterprising Women for her leadership and innovation as co-founder of Goodwinds Composites.

Cook, who earned an MBA from Western’s College of Business and Economics in 2007, will be celebrated at the annual Enterprising Women conference, March 8-10, in New Orleans.  

“It is an honor to be recognized. The whole idea behind this organization is to promote women entrepreneurs, and also to support and inspire entrepreneurialism among other women,” said Cook.

That spirit defines Cook, who takes every opportunity to learn and grow and to share what she’s learned in running her Mount Vernon business to help others.  

“We are incredibly proud to see Amelia recognized with this prestigious award,” said Kati Johnson, director of WWU’s MBA program. “Her generosity in helping our students learn and grow as professionals, ongoing commitment to our program, and leadership within the industry reflect the values we strive to cultivate in every MBA graduate. Amelia represents our program with integrity, excellence, and energy, and we are deeply grateful for her continued partnership.”

Cook is regularly invited to visit local high schools to talk to students or have local robotics clubs tour her company’s facility.  

“I love to tell them that something made their community, right here in Mount Vernon, is on Mars! It’s really cool,” she said. “I use that to sort of launch into this idea that you can work in manufacturing and work with your hands and create things that go out there in the world to be amazing.”  

Goodwinds Composites manufactures custom composite components, primarily made up of carbon and fiberglass, for a variety of industries.

“You can see the possibilities explode in these kids’ brains when I tell them, ‘You’re really only limited by how much effort you put into it.’” said Cook. “It’s selfish in a lot of ways because it brings me a lot of joy to open up possibilities, especially for young people.”

Family and chosen family

The year after receiving her MBA, Cook launched Goodwinds Composites in Mount Vernon with her brother.  

The pair purchased the online portion of a Seattle kite store that sold and distributed composite carbon and fiberglass rods and tubes manufactured elsewhere to hobbyists. Composites were becoming more widely used, and they saw a potential to expand into industrial supply.  

“It was 2008, and we were young and dumb,” said Cook. “I mean, who starts a business in a recession? And we’re not scientists. My brother is a fantastic salesperson, and he’s really good at managing operations and managing people. But we’re not scientists. We’re not engineers. And so, for us to create a business that relies on science and engineering is sort of weird.”  

But the siblings, both in their 20s, wanted to work together, and they had their parents’ support by way of a small loan and a lifetime of experience. Cook’s parents were entrepreneurs, and she’d grown up helping with the family business. 

“My brother and I complement each other very well. And at the end of the day, he’ll always be my brother, so we can argue about things,” she laughs. “Literally the person I know best in the world is on the other side of the desk, and that makes a really positive difference.”  

Cook said that having the opportunity to grow a business while working with family, raising her three children, and cultivating a chosen family from her employees is a priority.  

“I’m proud that of our 11 employees, five have been with us for 10 years or more,” said Cook. “We’ve created opportunities for a lot of families, a lot of people.”  

Whether employees come and work for a year or two or stay for longer, Goodwinds Composites provides a supportive working environment.  

“We’ve sent two of our employees to school, one of whom is at Western now getting his undergraduate degree in materials science,” said Cook. “It’s super cool. He’s such a scientist, and he gets to take all these amazing things he learns and then immediately apply them to, you know, how is this material reacting with this resin in this machine.”  

Growing a business  

The early days at Goodwinds Composites were tough, and it took several years to turn a profit, but the company continued to adapt and grow.  

“As the years went on and we learned more and we had more customer demand for different things, we added different processes,” said Cook. “Now we have enormous machines and end-to-end processes with true raw materials in a freezer container, raw carbon fiber sitting on a shelf, and barrels of resin.”

Composites are engineered materials that combine two or more materials and are stronger than each material alone.  

“One of my employees likes to explain it as ‘two plus two equals five,’” she said. “The composites that we deal with are carbon and fiberglass for the most part.”

The composites that the company manufactures end up as structural support inside of guitars, robotic arms that plastic-wrap warehouse palettes, hiking sticks, pool cues, and even the legs of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter that landed on Mars.  

“The story of our business is just taking opportunities where they’ve come,” said Cook.

Cook’s journey

Cook’s path to owning and running a manufacturing company was not a straight line.  

“An undergraduate degree is sort of a crucible for critical thinking skills — learning how to research, how to attack problems and ideas, leadership, and communication,” she said.  

After earning her undergraduate degree in history from Whitman College, she spent a few years exploring various fields, but nothing clicked.

“I came to get my MBA really not knowing what else I wanted to do,” she said. “In hindsight, it was one of the best decisions I could have made for where I am now. I use the things that I learned at Western every day.”

She chose Western partly because it’s where her boyfriend — now husband — was finishing up his degree.  

“I just thought an MBA would kind of distill all my interests and get me on a track where I could open up some possibilities,” Cook said.

Within a year of finishing the MBA program, she became a business owner.

Always learning, always giving back, always growing  

Cook’s resume is bursting with accomplishments and community involvement, which factored into her Enterprising Woman of the Year award.  

She just finished a two-year term as board chair of the Economic Development Alliance of Skagit County, sits on the executive board of the Association of Washington Business, the Skagit Valley College Manufacturing/Technical Education Advisory Committee, and the Mount Vernon High School CTE Advisory Committee, serves on the Skagit County Civil Service Commission, and is a member of the Skagit Manufacturing Roundtable and Washington Women in Manufacturing. Cook was named Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of the Year in 2024. This is just a partial list.  

Western has also benefited from Cook’s generosity. In 2024, the MBA program invited Goodwinds Composites to partner on a capstone project. Cook jumped at the chance to reconnect with WWU.    

In the final quarter of the program, MBA candidates form consulting teams led by capstone faculty. The teams work with a client organization to cultivate strategies to support growth, define market opportunities, foster innovation, and guide organizational change.  

“An MBA is a practitioner’s degree. When students use MBA tools to drive real outcomes with material consequences and benefits, it turns classroom learning into practice, and it’s transformative for both the team and the client,” said Aric Mayer, an MBA program capstone instructor. “We’re deeply grateful to clients like Amelia who open their doors to work with us to mentor students while their businesses grow.”  

The capstone serves 3-5 companies each year across industries and at a variety of scales, from Fortune 500 multinational firms to local single-entrepreneur startups and community-serving non-profits.  

“Not only was Amelia a generous collaborator, sharing expertise and fostering the growth and performance of our students, but she’s also remained invested in the program. Her connection to the Skagit Manufacturing Roundtable led to another successful capstone with an exceptional regional client,” said Lucas G. Senger, an MBA program capstone instructor. “Her award is truly well-deserved.”  

The goal of each capstone project is for students to apply their MBA learning in ways that deliver material value to their clients.  

“It was really fun to be able to give them the opportunity to have a window into a real functioning business,” said Cook. “It was great to get feedback from them, too. We didn't implement every idea that they had, but it was a lovely kick in the pants to remember some of that foundational MBA training and analysis of my own business.”

When she heads to New Orleans in March for the Enterprising Woman of the Year awards celebration, Cook plans to take full advantage of the conference’s leadership and learning opportunities.

“I grab every opportunity to learn with both hands,” said Cook. “You gotta keep working!” 

Learn more about WWU’s Master of Business Administration program in the College of Business and Economics.

Jennifer Nerad covers Western's College of Business and Economics and College of the Environment for the Office of University Communications. Have a great story idea? Reach out to her at neradj@wwu.edu.