Mark Haines: Mike Huckman Remembers
I will never forget the morning Mark Haines essentially anointed me.
I had just done my first live report on "Squawk Box" with the tape of the infamous interview I did with former telecom analyst Jack Grubman. It was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment and Mark, believe it or not, was rendered speechless if only for a brief moment. He then shook his head and with a special kind of grin said something along the lines of how "Ol' Jackie" was never quite so quiet when he was making all of the bullish, stock-moving calls over the years.
That interview got a lot of media play and was a seminal moment in my CNBC career. But what gave me the most gratification was that now I was a member of the "Mark Haines Club." Not only did he remember who I was, which was an accomplishment in and of itself in Haines' world, but I knew I had won his respect when, from that interview on, he gave me a classic Haines nickname. "Mike, the shark, Huckman."
I loved it, owned it. Thank you, Mark.
Mark Haines was one of those rare TV news anchors with a certain gravitas and level of credibility. In my 27-year, multi-market TV-news career I had worked with only one other like him—the other man being Detroit's anchor-god Bill Bonds.
Thank god, Bill is still alive. But the likes of Bill and Mark Haines are, sadly, an increasingly rare gift.
Mike Huckman is the former pharmaceuticals correspondent for CNBC, who is now SVP and Director of Media Strategy at the New York PR firm,MSL.
