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Morgan Hook SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, SKDKNICKERBOCKER Birthday: 8/9/1977 Twitter: @morganhook
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TIME OF DISARRAY
in Albany led to Morgan Hook’s personal ascent, he says. Wit h t he ra n ks of G o v. E l i o t S p i t z e r ’s staff thinning in the final weeks of his administration, Hook landed a job in the governor’s press office. Suddenly he found himself in a new administration, a nd fol low i ng more resignat ions he ultimately became Gov. David Paterson’s communications director. “Nobody benefitted personally from all those scandals more than I did, except for Andrew Cuomo,” he jokes now. Hook says he got a crash course in crisis management and public relations for a statewide figure. He is proud that he emerged relatively unscathed, he says. Hook went on to become assistant vice chancellor for communications at SUNY’s Office of the Chancellor. Now he is at SKDKnickerbocker, where he has represented clients from The Nature Conservancy to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. While many of Hook’s colleagues seem reluctant to leave New York City, he says he is very happy in Albany, where he can both work in a media center and live in a community with clear quality-of-life benefits for his three children. However, Hook says he often finds himself dismayed by what he calls Albany’s “chauvinistic,” male-dominated culture. The thing Hook loved about his former life as a journalist is the same thing he loves about his job now, he said. “It’s not the same thing every day,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to get.”
Where did you go to college? Boston University What politician, living or dead, do you most admire? Barack Obama. In New York, Eric Schneiderman.