Jim Van Hook

Before 1981, Jim Van Hook taught for several years at the college and university level, earned his master's degree in Music Education at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, and served as the Minister of Music in Oklahoma at the largest Nazarene Church in the world at the time. He also served as a clinician, speaker, and publisher in the music industry. He performed hundreds of live concerts, was featured in a weekly television show, and owned three retail bookstores.

In 1978, Jim, his wife, and two children returned to Nashville to become the Sr. VP of the Benson Company. Then, in 1981, with a $500 investment, he started Brentwood Music. Brentwood grew to become one of the top three companies in Christian music and, in 1993, won the Small Business Of The Year award in Middle Tennessee and was listed as one of Nashville's fastest-growing businesses.

In 1994, he sold the business to the Zomba Corp. and remained president and CEO for the next nine years. Brentwood had become an $85,000,000 business when Mr Van Hook decided to retire. His retirement lasted only four months when he accepted the job of the first Dean of the Mike Curb College Of Entertainment And Music Business at Belmont University. Over the next three years, the college became America's largest music business college, with 1400 majors and programs in LA and New York.

Toward the end of those three years, Warner Brothers Music hired Mr Van Hook as the CEO of Word Entertainment, where he led the company to its second, third, and fourth most profitable years in its 58-year history.