Gina Parker
Gina Parker knows the food-related struggles many college students face: not enough time to eat well, not enough money to afford quality ingredients and not enough ideas to create good meals while on the go.
Her solutions are on her Instagram: a “Lemon Pasta with Chicken” recipe that makes four servings for $12; suggestions for squeezing cooking into a busy schedule; and advice for easy foods and drinks to keep students energized while they go to class or study.
“I think our food culture has become fast food: You eat alone, you eat quickly, in silence. You don’t stop and share that with people around you,” said Parker, who is graduating this spring with a degree in marketing and minors in entrepreneurship and journalism. “I really wanted to try to stop that pattern, to show people that it is possible—to split the ingredients, split the costs, and sit down and have dinner once a week.”
Food has always been Parker’s love language. She loves the nuts and bolts of creating a recipe, the intangibles of tinkering and the community it creates.
As she graduates from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, she’s excited to take her passion for food in new, entrepreneurial directions—to places she never would have thought of.
Food for the stomach and the heart
While cooking has been Parker’s focus lately, baking is in her blood. It started in the kitchen with her mom while in elementary school and grew as Parker did.
In middle school, she spent hours watching and replicating baking tutorials from YouTube. By age 16, she was working at Denver’s Rebel Bread bakery. In high school, she had her own informal baking business: Parker would post pictures on her Instagram and customers would send her direct messages to order it.
“I’ve always been passionate about making things special for people through food,” she said. “That’s where my love of baking and wanting to spread that love started.”
When it came time to go to college, Parker didn’t know what she would study, but she knew she wanted food to be part of it. She selected the marketing program, though it was one of her introductory core business classes that would set the tone for her four years on campus.
In BUS 1440: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, students learn about the technologies behind AI, cryptocurrency, blockchain, internet of things (IoT) and others. As a final project, they innovate a product or service, which they pitch, startup-style, at the 4impact Challenge.
“I never really thought about entrepreneurship until I came to college, but getting into 1440 is where the idea clicked that everybody is an entrepreneur,” Parker said. “Like, if you did a lemonade stand as a kid, that’s a great example of being an entrepreneur.”
Not long after, Parker became involved in the programming offered at the University’s Entrepreneurship@DU hub.
Gina Parker (center) at the fourth annual Pop-Up Palooza.
Spotlight on entrepreneurship
As Parker met more of DU’s entrepreneurial students, she became more and more inspired to showcase their creativity and ambition. Her experience working at farmer’s markets helped her sketch out an idea for a festival that showcased student and alumni businesses, with plenty of food, swag and live music to go around.
She called it Pop-Up Palooza, a nod to one of the country’s largest music festivals. Its first year featured 33 vendors, four student bands and a spring snowstorm that forced the event indoors.
“Despite the challenges, Pop-Up Palooza came to life, and with it, a celebration of the incredible talent and entrepreneurial spirit at DU,” Parker wrote in a blog post outlining the event’s history. “Students finally had a place to share their talents, passions and ideas with the DU campus.”
This year, its fourth, Pop-Up Palooza expanded to more than 75 student vendors.
“Gina has consistently brought creativity, dedication and initiative to everything she’s involved in,” said Joshua Ross, an associate professor and director of Entrepreneurship@DU (E@DU). “She truly embodies what it means to be both a Daniels student and a 4D student—bringing together academic excellence, real-world experience, and a focus on impact and purpose.”
The recipe for a dream job
Through her work with Pop-Up Palooza and her experience with DU’s one-day, one-credit Sprint courses, Parker feels she has developed the skills she needs to succeed beyond graduation.
She has learned the importance of clear communication, strategies for balancing her time, the value in marketing and the ability to not take criticism too personally.
An independent study to audit her own social media channels has helped her understand her personal brand and define her short- and long-term goals.
Her post-grad path will begin in the Windy City, where she will work as a sales intern for nonprofit news organization Block Club Chicago. It’s a step toward her dream job of content creation for a food and beverage publication. A bed and breakfast or a café/bakery/wine bar are on her wish list, too. And, thanks to Daniels, DU and E@DU, she feels eager to get started.
“I think I’m more confident in who I am as a person and what I want,” she said. “I’ve learned to stick up for myself more and advocate for myself. I know that my needs and wants are valid. And while I do work very hard to get where I need to be, sometimes you need a little pushback from people in your life to keep you going down the right path and inspire you.”
Of course, that means leaving behind the campus she loves and the transformational entrepreneurship event she created.
For the food lover, it all has a certain flavor.
“It’s bittersweet to be losing that,” Parker said, “but I think I’m ready to go out there and see what’s next for me.”