Conversations with Holly Hearn

During my senior year, a nationally known cooking show reached out to me through social media to see if I would be interested in auditioning for the show. To make a long story short I did, and I made it all the way to the final round of the audition process but didn’t make the final cut. I came home from the show and 2 weeks later the first covid shut down occurred. During that time, I graduated from Lamar University with my degree in industrial engineering into what was basically a frozen job market. In the months following, I was invited on an offshore trip with some friends and ended up provisioning for the trip and cooking all the meals. After the trip, the captain told me that I should consider becoming a private chef and pursuing this full time, 2 months later Game Girl Gourmet was born!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
While I do my best to learn from everything and everyone, there are 2 events in particular I consider as having the greatest impact on my development. The first event was dropping out of college at 19. Like many young adults, I was not mature enough to be in college right out of high school. I had spent my whole life (4-18) wanting to study marine biology because I loved the oceans and wildlife. However, once I began the course of study, I realized that it was not for me. Rather than waste time and money trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I dropped out. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel like a complete and utter failure at this point. I had never failed at anything before. I moved to Beaumont and began working in a manufacturing faculty. I quickly fell in love with process improvement and statistics I began teaching myself about statistical process control and continuous improvement. After about 2 years off I enrolled at Lamar University. I graduated from Lamar in 2020 with my degree in industrial engineering. Throughout my time at Lamar, I continued to work at the manufacturing facility and several other plants in the area. During my senior year however, a very popular cooking competition on national tv reached out to me through social media and asked if would consider auditioning for the show. My initial thoughts were “this has to be a scam,” in my defense I was in my senior year of engineering school! I ignored the message at first but they continued to reach out to me. So, I finally decided to give it a try. I ended up making it all the way to the final phase of auditions in Los Angeles. Although in the end, I didn’t make the final cut, which I am now very grateful for but at the time was very difficult. It was the first thing I ever felt like I put my everything into and was not successful at, however looking back it was such a blessing that I didn’t make it because I was able to come home right before the COVID shut down and graduate on time. I will say, having someone at that level in the culinary world reach out to me and see talent within me just from the photos of my food gave me the confidence I needed to start Game Girl Gourmet. Looking back now everything makes a lot of sense. I feel like these two things are the reason why I am currently so resilient. I have leaned many more lessons and overcome several obstacles since starting Game Girl. For one thing starting a business during a global pandemic is not for the faint of heart. The level of uncertainty during the planning process for any event or dinner due to COVID cancellation made scheduling incredibly difficult. Another very large obstacle that I face is trying to overcome the negative perception that some people have about hunting/fishing. A lot of the misconceptions that people have about hunting and fishing stem from a lack of education and bad media. Most outdoorsmen and women are incredibly conservation minded and put a lot of time, effort, and funding into ensuring that the wildlife we love is around for the next generation. For example, 100 percent of the profits made from hunting and fishing license sold in Texas goes to Texas Parks and Wildlife. However, there are always people within the hunting and fishing communities that misrepresent the group with poor behavior and ethics and due to the prevalence of social media the bad tends to be broadcast more widely than the good.