Breann Shook ’02 Teaches Old Dogs New Tricks as CEO of Grandma Lucy’s Healthy Pet Food

For Breann Shook ’02, it all started out with an 11-12 months-old English Cocker Spaniel named Lucy. When Lucy created food items allergic reactions in the late 1990s, Shook – then a organization administration major at Chapman University – established out on a quest to find nutritious and delicious meals alternate options for her picky pet. She ended up founding her have all-purely natural pet foods enterprise, Grandma Lucy’s, while she was even now an undergrad.

Two many years afterwards, Shook has been honored by the Orange County Organization Journal with the 2022 JPMorgan Chase & Co. “Women on the Move” Award. 

“Our enterprise has witnessed double-digit development each yr since we commenced, yet we nevertheless have so quite a few possibilities to convey even extra animals all over the world healthy foods,” claims Shook. “I glimpse forward to continuing to grow our organization even though starting off our new non-revenue, Challenge Pet RAK, that raises money to assist help company and treatment canines and their men and women.”

The nonprofit is a enthusiasm project for Shook, began with her daughter, Alex, who hopes to attend Chapman up coming slide. 

“Our middle son has autism so we have observed initial hand the freedoms these remarkable animals can give to their particular person,” claims Shook.

We asked her to share some of her favored recollections from Chapman.

Who was the most influential human being for you at Chapman and why?

While I never was equipped to meet him in person, I heard Dr. Doti communicate a lot of times and I normally cherished hearing about all of the amazing items he was accomplishing to improve Chapman. 

If you could go again in time and working experience one particular second all over again at Chapman, what would it be? Would you do just about anything differently?

In one of my lessons, we have been equipped to get the job done with a woman who was starting off a organization that manufactured stickers to mark children’s products these types of as their jackets, lunchboxes, and so on. I cherished encouraging her produce a good small business program as I understood how attempting it can be as an entrepreneur starting your own company from scratch.

What do you desire you realized at the time you graduated that you know now? What advice can you give to college students or new grads of nowadays?

Due to the fact I was constructing Grandma Lucy’s throughout my time at Chapman, I was not in a position to do an internship but I would have beloved to. I was fortunate to be capable to apply what I was mastering and I consider it is so critical for college learners to do the exact. Coming out of faculty with a diploma AND work encounter is so beneficial in supplying them a leg up in a remarkably competitive work market place. It is also a good time to test unique styles of positions and get the job done environments to see what you like finest. This is why we are operating with Chapman to make a college or university internship application at Grandma Lucy’s for 2023.

How did Chapman prepare you for your occupation? For everyday living? How did your working experience at Chapman get ready you for the real entire world?

I am grateful to all of the Chapman business professors for their actual-world instructing. What I signify by this is, so many situations I listen to from staff members or colleagues that they really do not use what they discovered in university. They felt that what they figured out was out of date and was not quickly utilized to the constantly transforming company entire world. My Chapman professors would implement what we had been finding out to recent organizations and train about new practices emerging in the markets. It was so handy and also taught me to be aware of people developments.

Do you have any other words of knowledge for pupils and new grads of Chapman College?

Chapman is also so intertwined in the Orange County organization group which is exactly what attracted my daughter to Chapman. Orange County is a hub for all sorts of enterprises and the possibilities Chapman has established for their college students to be a portion of it all offers them encounters you are not able to obtain in a lot of universities. Have so significantly fun though at Chapman and just take benefit of all of the packages and options they have produced for their college students. Not only will it all make lifelong reminiscences, those ordeals will assist you strike the floor running when you graduate.