Shook ensures that Buckeye stands by its motto “Live Here, Work Here, Give Here”—and that continues to set the operator apart. It earned a spot on Newsweek’s 2024 Excellence 1000 Index largely because of its charitable spirit and financial performance. Buckeye gives its employees a monetary donation for a charity of their choice and paid volunteer hours. On the product front, Shook ensured Buckeye was one of the first to deploy TiVo Broadband, a video offering bringing together the power of FAST and premium SVOD services for broadband-only customers.
Favorite way to de-stress? Just about every evening, I “squad up” with my adult sons to play video games. Not only am I able to de-stress and channel some of my frustrations, it also helps me maintain regular communication, connectivity and comradery with my sons even though we are all located in different parts of the country.
Fast Food Guilty Pleasure? Extra Hot, meat and cheese only tacos from a regional fast-food chain HQ’d in Tuscaloosa, AL: Taco Casa. This has been a must visit for me every time I go home to Alabama since college. Second would be a Double Cheeseburger from In-N-Out Burger.
Do you personally still have a traditional cable video package? Yes. Although I take full advantage of a multitude of OTT assets as well as our own IPTV service, I maintain a traditional video package at my residence. I do so to insure we maintain a quality linear qam platform. We still have many customers who haven’t transitioned to our IPTV service nor fully embraced the opportunity to create an “al-a-carte” type service through OTT opportunities, so I need to maintain my connection to linear/traditional delivery to make sure it maintains an acceptable level of delivery.
Book that greatly influenced my leadership style? It’s an older book but one I re-read regularly from cover to cover and quote just about every day; “Everyone’s a Coach” by Ken Blanchard and Don Shula.