In December 1944, while test flying a newly delivered P-38 in France, the dive flaps failed; he crashed, during which his right arm was severed.
In 1967, he recruited Ernest C. Arbuckle, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, to succeed Stephen Chase as board chairman.
In 1982, he resigned from Wells Fargo and, the following year, was named chairman, chief executive, and president of the nearly bankrupt Seafirst Corporation in Seattle, Washington.
At Seafirst, which had made several bad loans to oil industry projects that failed, Cooley orchestrated a merger with Bank of America.
[1] Cooley also served as a director of United Airlines for 25 years beginning in the early 1970s; Pacific Gas and Electric, Paccar, Egghead Software, and the Burlington Northern Railroad from 1989 to 1994.