So you’ve heard Jacque’s side of the story of how we became Chicks with Ticks. Here’s mine…
I was in grad school and my advisor told me I would be doing my research assistantship with this PhD student/big shot department head at some engineering firm in Lakeland. This big shot, John, was going to be in Gainesville the next day to meet me. So I rolled out of bed, hungover (those were the days!), and met John for the first time. This meeting turned out more like a job interview, a really long job interview, with John reading down my resume and going on and on and on about some project. Luckily for me John didn’t notice I was hungover (or didn’t care) and decided to give me the job!
I later found out that John’s only real hiring criteria was to make sure I wasn’t some girly girl who would be SCARED to do the job– a job that all the talking in the world (and John can talk ALOT) could have NEVER truly prepared me for. But the way John spoke about the project, like Jacque, I felt that I could do anything with this guy at the helm. You see, you don’t often meet someone so passionate about something, and his passion for Florida streams was utterly contagious! He rattled off a list of people who I would later meet when I came down to Lakeland, none of the names which I remembered by the time I made it down there a couple weeks later.
So then I met Jacque. She was LOUD. She was OUTGOING. She was a GET ‘ER DONE kinda girl. She was TALL with CRAZY curly hair! And I instantly loved her. She’s one of those people who makes you feel comfortable the moment you meet her, like you’ve known her forever. She would be the one out there surveying streams with me. Wait, what?? Surveying?! Where?! I had never surveyed. The only thing I knew about surveying was that that’s what the guys on the side of the road do…
This doesn't look very fun!
Chicks With Ticks 