Texas Tech University

Chris Cook

Assistant Professor of Practice & Assistant Dean of Enrollment Management & Marketing
Public Relations & Strategic Communication Management

Email: chris.cook@ttu.edu

Phone: +1.806.834.4129

Office: 252A

Chris Cook

Biography

A 30-year veteran in public relations, media relations and marketing, Chris Cook begins his 23rd year at Texas Tech University and his first as Assistant Dean for Enrollment & Marketing and Assistant Professor of Practice. His background and experiences are rooted in relationship building, particularly around external audiences and media on behalf of the organizations with which he's worked.

Cook returns to the university following a two-year run as Executive Vice President of Marketing at First Financial Bank in Abilene, where he shifted the company's marketing focus around storytelling and digital marketing, including an emphasis on social media advertising and statewide streaming opportunities on both video and audio platforms. The results included growth in overall business and dramatic increases in social media followers, engagement and impressions.

Cook spent the previous 22 years at Texas Tech, including the latter 11 in university administration as the institution's Senior Director of Communications & Marketing. His duties included serving as university spokesperson, crisis communication coordinator and guiding messaging and marketing efforts on behalf of the institution, in addition to leading an office that provided communications, marketing, social media, video, photography and web and graphic design support to the campus community. Cook also delivered direct communications counsel to university leadership and departments throughout campus.

From 1999-10, he directed the university's athletics communications office as Associate Athletics Director, helping lead the department's media efforts through one of the most successful periods in the university's history. The Red Raider football program, directed by then-head coach Mike Leach, and the women's and men's basketball programs, led by hall of fame coaches Marsha Sharp and Bob Knight, along with other successful sport programs, elevated the department's profile and subsequent national and international media attention.

In 2008, Cook led an award-winning Heisman campaign on behalf of All-America wide receiver Michael Crabtree and quarterback Graham Harrell, which resulted in unprecedented off-the-field coverage for the football program. The Pass or Catch 2008 campaign, which was a play on the U.S. Presidential campaign that same year, received nationwide attention throughout the season. The effort was recognized with a national Telly Award in 2009. The 2002 Heisman campaign for quarterback Kliff Kingsbury won an award from the Press Club of Dallas.

Prior to joining Texas Tech, he served as Assistant Sports Information Director at Saint Louis University from 1994-99 and was a graduate intern at Western Kentucky University from 1993-94. Cook is a 1993 journalism graduate of Louisiana Tech University and received a master's degree in mass communication at Texas Tech in 2012.

Cook, a devout Parrothead since 1989, and his wife, Jennifer, have a teenage son, Jack, and two dogs, Arrow and Hutch.