Member of Board of Directors, Helping Our Heroes Foundation

Mr. Nigel Hook

Nigel Hook was born in Stoke-on-Trent, a city in the heart of the British midlands known for its pottery, chiefly its Wedgwood fine china. Nigel graduated with honors from Staffordshire University with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science and later received a Masters Degree of Business Administration (MBA) in Management.

Nigel ventured to the United States and started his career with the consulting company Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGEY), performing software development. In 1981, he started DATASKILL to provide similar services (a first big account was developing a billing system for Home Box Office).

Nigel lives in Del Mar, California with his wife Janet and daughter Jessica, where his business has been headquartered since 1984. He guided DATASKILL smoothly through the growth times of the 90’s, honored with inclusion on the INC 500 list, and he provided a steady helm through the perilous dot com era. Now one of IBM’s top partners on the West Coast, Nigel sits on IBM’s Advisory Board for the mid-market — an honor he has held for four years.

DATASKILL helps companies (local and select multinational) with consulting on business transformations, building business applications, and integrating processes both within the enterprise and across the supply chain. DATASKILL counts Leap Wireless as a loyal customer in the local market and Kuehne & Nagel as one of its top global customers.

Nigel sits on the Board for San Diego State University’s MBA Sports Business Management program. He is also on the board for San Diego’s 2-1-1, which is the new national dialing code for free, 24-hour information for community, health and disaster needs.

In parallel with his professional career, Nigel’s passion for sport has earned him international acclaim in Offshore Powerboat Racing. Driven to win, Nigel became hooked at an early age, following his uncle (Roger Hook, British National Champion 1968, 1969) to races in Europe. As a teenager Nigel jumped on his first chance to race with his Uncle Roger in the 1974 Dawlish 100.

The pinnacle of his Offshore Powerboat Racing career came in 1998, when he was inducted into the American Power Boat Association’s (APBA) Hall of Champions. From 1993 to 2000, Hook achieved a World Championship and four National Championships along with a string of World speed records. Most recently Hook set the class speed record in the 2004 Nuestros Rios Son Navegables in Venezuela, the Chattanooga Mile speed record, and the ocean endurance record from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Nigel’s powerboat racing status has launched many unique experiences — including becoming a Tail Hooker on the USS Abraham Lincoln. On a 2002 Distinguished Visitor program with the Navy, Nigel had the privilege of living 24 hours with sailors on maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean before being catapulted back to civilian life.

Nigel celebrated the 2003 New Year at Bagram Airforce base in Afghanistan, where he joined Geoffrey Bodine, Jerry Nadeau and Tony Schumacher on the NASCAR Tour to meet the troops. On a subsequent visit to the Army’s Walter Reed Hospital with Karen Theobald (whom Nigel had met on the NASCAR tour), Nigel was in on the genesis of Helping Our Heroes Foundation and accepted Karen’s invitation in founding HOHF's website, www.hohf.org, designed and developed by Carole Hamilton.

Nigel received his U.S. Citizenship (along with papers personally autographed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) on October 26th, 2004 in San Diego.

In July, 2006, watch for Nigel and his wife Janet in Michael Mann’s new movie, "Miami Vice". Nigel will be driving the #7 LUCAS OIL Superboat chasing the detective team of Crocket and Tubs, played by Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx.