TIME and Ally Financial Honor Burley Dealer MATT COOK WINS NATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE AND INDUSTRY ACCOMPLISHMENTS The nomination of Matt Cook, dealer principal at Goode Motor Ford in Burley, Idaho, for the 2024 TIME Dealer of the Year award was announced by TIME on Oct. 18. Cook was one of a select group of 49 dealer nominees from across the country who was honored at the 107th annual National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Feb. 3, 2024. The TIME Dealer of the Year award is one of the automobile industry’s most prestigious and highly coveted honors. The award recognizes the nation’s most successful auto dealers who also demonstrate a long-standing commitment to community service. Cook was chosen to represent the Idaho Automobile Dealers Association in the national competition — one of only 49 auto dealers nominated for the 55th annual award from more than 16,000 nationwide. “My role as a car dealer in a small town extends far beyond the showroom,” nominee Cook said. “I am a steward of the resources I have been blessed with in order to enhance the lives of my employees and to make big contributions to my local community to ensure it is a better place to live.” Cook earned a B.A. in political science in 1995 and a J.D. in 1998 from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He had worked as a law clerk for a federal judge and was an associate at an international law firm in Houston, Texas, when he decided to take a different career path that ultimately brought him back to his family roots. “My story really begins in 1917 when Alonzo Read, my great grandfather, started the first Ford dealership in Idaho,” he said. “By 1938, that store had changed hands and became Goode Motor Ford. Fast forward to 1994 when I married Trista Williams, an Idaho native, whose dad happened to be owner and general manager of Goode Motor Ford.” Cook, who grew up in Texas, had never been to Idaho and was shocked by the 18 | Driveline
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