Dr. Cooley’s career spanned the history of modern cardiovascular surgery. He developed many of today’s commonly used cardiovascular procedures and devices. He is best known for performing the first successful human heart transplant in the United States (1968), as well as the first clinical implants of mechanical devices - total artificial hearts (1969 and 1981) and a left ventricular assist device (1978) - as bridges to heart transplantation. However, many of his other contributions are equally important: the first successful carotid endarterectomy as well as techniques for repairing diseased heart valves, congenital cardiac anomalies, and aortic and ventricular aneurysms. In the early days of open heart surgery, few cardiovascular surgeons did more than two operations per day. Dr. Cooley proved that a skilled surgeon could do up to 12 procedures per day. Because he used glucose rather than blood to prime the heart-lung machine, patients were spared unnecessary exposure to blood, and more operations could be performed. He and his team performed nearly 115,000 open heart operations. For these reasons, Dr. Cooley’s name became synonymous with medical and technical excellence.