Meet Jerad Linnell | Outdoor Cooking Enthusiast

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jerad Linnell and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jerad, every day, we about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
One of my favorite pastimes is spending time around any type of outdoor grill. It gives me a chance to unwind and it gives me an opportunity to share something I have created with others. All of my family and friends have told me to either open a restaurant or do catering. All though I LOVE cooking this is not something i wanted to pursue because I didn’t want to become married to cooking. ( I have much respect for those in the food/restaurant industry…they are always grinding.) I still wanted to find a way to monetize my passion and one day I was on my grill making chicken for my friends and family. It was raining outside and I wanted to get back inside to join the party so i started scooping BBQ sauce on the chicken with the basting brush I was using..:then I brushed it on. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I was on to something I scoured the internet to find a spoon with a brush attached and couldn’t find anything. It was then that the idea for my business was formed and two years later we had a patent for the GrillSpec Tomahaük which is a basting brush that has three different brushes that can attach to it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I absolutely love my current career and my dedication to hard work has helped me advance the way I have. I grew up in Montana and wanted to be involved in community corrections (Probation/Parole) work as I progressed through college. I couldn’t make a career of it back home so I moved to California. It definitely was not an easy adjustment and I had a lot to learn and I had to learn it quickly. Fortunately I quickly earned the respect of a few peers helped mentor me and helped make the adjustment to the fast pace life of California. I am honored to serve the community I live in and have received Officer of the Year recognition 3 times in the course of my career. I was part of a program that received national recognition for a Mental Health awareness. I have also received a medal of valor and medal for distinguished service for response to a terrorist attack. The lesson I have learned is that nobody is going to live your life for you. You have to put your self out there and take some chances or life will pass you by before you get a chance to enjoy it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Everyone always tells me that I am crazy for moving here from Montana but I absolutely love living in Southern California. Besides outdoor cooking, my two other passions are sports and music. Whenever someone visits the first place that is a must is In-n-Out. It’s the perfect place to grab a bite and catch up on lost time. A trip to dodger stadium would definitely be in order, complete with a stadium tour and seats behind home plate. We would also have to catch some sort of rock show at either the Whisky a Go Go or the Roxy. Many rock gods have traveled through those places. No trip to SoCal would be complete without a trip to the ocean to go for a swim and go on a fishing expedition! I would definitely make sure to plan a cook out along with all of my BBQ buddies…magic goes down at these cook outs! Although I don’t drink anymore, I would still take them on a brewery tour to many of these amazing breweries we have! Lastly I would take a trip to Magic Mountain to ride all those gnarly roller coasters

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are definitely a lot of people to thank for my successes but a great deal of my support has come from my parents. They were divorced when I was very young but they both stayed very involved in my life. Either of them had much and there were many times we struggled. That never kept them from showing me ways to embrace the great things in life. We always found stuff to do and made a lot of life lasting memories. Even through I was being parented separately either of them said anything bad about one another. I look back on and really appreciate all that they did. They both taught me to keep my head down, keep my mouth shut and keep pushing forward. If you do that, good things will happen.

Website: grillspec.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com › grillJerad (@grill.swill.chill)

Other: Tik Tok grills_on_film. YouTube with same handle should be up soon!