“My first fishing memories are with my Grandfather on the Merrimac River.  We’d get up at five a.m., get our crickets and catch our stringers of blue gill that my Grandmother would fry up whole.  I was fascinated, and it just stuck.”

After college, Jen moved to South Florida which sent her dreams of being a writer into a tailspin.  “I couldn’t get enough of the ocean!”  She started work as a deckhand on a live aboard dive charter in the Bahamas.  After gaining her sea time, she worked up to be the first-ever female captain in the company’s history.  In 1999, Jen began working as the Dockmaster at Rybovich in Palm Beach and knew sport fishing was her next move – although it would be a tough one.  “It was hard to get a fish job in Palm Beach, even with all my contacts.” 

Looking to do anything to break herself in the business, Jen fell short on many job interviews, but finally got an opportunity to run the 53’ Rybovich, El Viejo.  After meeting her husband, Tommy, a long-time sport boat Captain, she moved further south hoping to pursue her fishing career.  “Tommy dropped me off at the charter dock at Ocean Reef and told me ‘good luck, sweetheart’.”  Jen returned with a job, decking for Capt. Bob Beck.  Halfway through her first sailfish season, she recalls, “one morning I could barely open my hands and I said to Tommy, ‘I don’t want to go fishing today.’  He laughed and said, ‘congratulations, dear, you are now a professional.’” 

Almost eight years later, Jen currently runs the 45’ Viking, Three C’s.  “I could never thank the Loudermilk family enough for this opportunity.”  She adds that the support from her husband and her peers, especially those at Ocean Reef, for the past seven years has been unbelievable.  “They all have taught me something, and to them I will always be grateful.  There were many times I wanted to quit, and many jobs I lost.  But, if you do your best, you will shine through, and people notice that.”

This is the second tournament year Jen will fish on the Steel Magnolia.  “I am really looking forward to it.  The Roberts’ southern hospitality is a real treat for me…I feel like I am at home with the entire team.”