Jack R. Cluck

Inducted: 1983

With a small band of supporters from the Grange and Aero-Mechanics Union, Jack Cluck led the merger with the Medical Security Clinic that formed Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. Then, serving as prosecutor in the landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the State of Washington found the local medical society in restraint of trade for denying membership to Group Health Cooperative physicians, Cluck defended the fundamental right of consumers to organize the delivery of their health care. Jack Cluck’s entire professional life was oriented toward the organization of cooperatives. Through the 1930s, he was instrumental in the formation of many agricultural and rural electric cooperatives in Western Washington.