Candidate: Thomas H. Cook

Dear Bay County Citizens, 

 I would like to introduce myself and ask for your vote for the Bay County Commission Seat, District 4. 

My name is Thomas Cook and I am a native Bay Countian who has lived here for nearly my entire life, with the exception of several years when a job took me to North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida before finally-and thankfully- coming home to the Florida panhandle and settling back in to Bay County, after a short stopover in Washington County.

 I was born right here in Bay County at Bay Memorial Hospital in 1970, which is known today as Ascension Sacred Heart Bay. I, along with most of my extended family have lived in Bay County for several generations going back to the 1930’s. I grew up in St. Andrews, from my birth until my family moved to Lynn Haven in 1978.  I have been married to my high school sweetheart, Susan Wells Cook for over 29 years and we have two wonderful children together. Susan is a Registered Nurse and worked for nearly 20 years at Bay Medical Center in the Labor and Delivery department. Our son, Logan, is a full-time firefighter with the City of Panama City Beach and our daughter, Lauren is a senior this year at Deane Bozeman School.

I have worked the past 20 years for BellSouth Telecommunications, which became AT&T in January of 2007. During my tenure, I have held various positions, both in Craft and in Management. I began my career as an Outside Craft Technician, who would come to your home or office to install or repair your telephone service. After about 4 years I was promoted to the construction side of the house and became the technician that spliced the cables together out in the field. In 2006, I was again promoted, this time into management and have since held several key leadership positions, with my current position being in the Planning and Engineering department.

My family has a long and established history of being civic minded and serving our communities. My grandfather, James E. Hayes was a City of Panama City Commissioner back in the mid-1950’s. He was very instrumental in the development and building of the Panama City Civic Center, development of both the Downtown and St. Andrews Marinas and the development, acquisition of land and placement of Gulf Coast Community College at its present location. He also began a career with the Bay County School Board in the mid 1960’s as an inventory and asset inspector. He eventually became the Superintendent of the Bay County School Bussing System until his retirement in the early 1980’s.   

 My great uncle, H.B. Hayes served the citizens of Bay County with the Bay County Sheriff’s office, beginning his career in the early 1950’s as a patrolman and eventually became a jailer at the county jail until he retired in the mid 1980’s.  My father, George C. Cook, Sr. served the citizens of Bay County for over 40 years in various capacities. He began his career working as an operator for the Panama City wastewater department before going to work at Tyndall AFB at the wastewater treatment plant as a plant operator on the base. He later moved to the Navy Base working as a plant operator at the wastewater facility and also with the pest control division to help control the mosquito population on base. In 1972 he began to work for Bay County as the Superintendent of the freshwater treatment facility located on Transmitter Road. He worked there until his retirement in August 1995. During his tenure, he oversaw the building of the drawdown structure at Deer Point Lake in the early 1980’s, the expansion of the treatment plant for greater capacity and upgrades to the pumping facility at Williams Bayou along Deer Point Lake. He was also tasked with overseeing the industrial and domestic wastewater treatment facilities that the county owned in the early 1980’s into the early 1990’s.

As you can see, my family has deep roots in Bay County that go back nearly 100 years. I have a great love for Bay County, and I would welcome the opportunity to continue the tradition of being a good steward of my community and being a servant leader each and every day. Bay County has been good to me and my family and I would welcome the opportunity to serve to ensure that it remains a great place to live, work, worship and play for generations to come.

  Some of my goals as your commissioner would be to:

1. Seek to reduce the high cost to the citizens and businesses of the county water and sewer services

2. Assist with the continued recovery efforts from Hurricane Michael

3. Work on finding and acquiring grants to assist the citizens with housing hardships resulting from Hurricane Michael

4. Work to preserve and increase available public lands for recreational and conservation use

5. Work to create an environment in Bay County to encourage new and expanded jobs and promote economic growth

6. Bring in a fresh perspective, as I am just a hard-working citizen with no self-serving agenda who wants to make a positive impact in our community and preserve the life we have for the next generation and those that follow empowering the citizens and communities

 I hope you will find that I am a respectable candidate who you can trust with your vote in this special election. I truly desire to see Bay County continue to grow, prosper and become the premier county in the state.

Thank you for your consideration,

Thomas H. Cook