Pat Esser, president of Cox Communications, is the recipient of the 2010 Grand TAM award, the highest individual honor bestowed annually by the Cable & Telecommunication Association for Marketing.
The Grand TAM recognizes an individual's talent as well as his or her commitment to ensuring the future of the cable industry through marketing and education initiatives.
"Pat fits our ‘Grand TAM' criteria perfectly," CTAM chairman and ESPN executive vice president Sean Bratches said in a statement. "He has achieved amazing results for Cox Communications as a customer-focused success story in an intensely competitive market. His long-term support of CTAM, especially with the Educational Foundation and CTAM U., is a model for anyone in the industry."
Esser will be presented with the award by Bratches and CTAM president and CEO Char Beales during the CTAM Summit's closing brunch on Wednesday, Oct. 20, from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm, at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside.
"Pat embodies the spirit of volunteerism," Beales commented. "He took a strong personal interest in enhancing the CTAM U. curriculum to best serve the MSO, programmer and technology company needs. And in a business that demands so much of your time and talent, it is especially noteworthy that he has been able to carve out time and energy to continuously give back to the industry he helped pioneer."
Esser -- who was named Multichannel News's 2007 Executive of the Year -- has led Cox as its top executive since 2006 and has spent more than 30 years in cable and telecommunications. He joined Cox in 1979 as director of programming in Hampton Roads, Va., and was part of the original management team that charted the course for the cable operator's advertising sales division now known as Cox Media.
He is currently vice chairman of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, after serving as treasurer and co-chair of NCTA's Cable Show. He also is on the board of directors of C-SPAN, CableLabs and Cable in the Classroom.
Esser served on the CTAM Educational Foundation board of directors from 2002 to 2009. In addition, he is an advisor to the Association of Cable Communicators and the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications. Esser also is a Southeastern Trustee of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in communications media from the University of Northern Iowa.
