The First GoGirl: Jenni Hogan

**The GoGirl Academy was co-founded by two amazing women: Suzanne Keel-Eckmann and Jenni Hogan. Since Jenni is my GoGirl coach, I've gotten to know just how amazing she is! This blog post is all about Jenni! (Or J, as I so affectionately call her.)**

Jenni was born in Adelaide, Australia. (Or "Austr-aya" as you might here J pronounce it.) She has a pretty thick Australian accent, which only grows stronger when her mum comes to visit!

Jenni wandered over to the United States as a member of the Australian National rowing team to race in the Windermere Cup. This trip changed her life, as she was offered a rowing scholarship at the University of Washington. Two years later, she started school and joined the Husky crew team. During her 4 years on the team, they won two national championships, with her final race being one of them. She was captain of the crew team that won the biggest race of her life! Not too shabby for a husky. ;)

Can you spot Jenni?

National champs!

Jenni graduated from the University of Washington in 2002 with a double degree in Communications and Economics. After working in smaller markets in places such as Idaho, Jenni made her way back "home" to Seattle and worked her way to the morning traffic anchor desk at KIRO TV. A self proclaimed traffoxy (a traffic anchor that is female and has an Aussie accent), Jenni brings Seattle the most entertaining traffic reports "every 10 minutes!" on the morning news, starting at 4:30am.

Fellow KIRO morning anchor Sam and Jenni. Something you may not guess about J? She's 6 feet tall!

The biggest thing that sets Jenni apart from the rest is her dedication to her BTFs (Best Twitter Friends). Jenni has over 17,600 followers on twitter, and makes a conscious effort to give everyone a shout-out every now and then! Twitter is actually where J and I had our first "conversation":

It was a dark and cold night. I lay awake in my bed, unable to sleep. I turn and look at the clock: 4:30am. I groan and pull the covers over my head. Frustrated, I hopped out of bed and went out to the living room and turned on the television. I flipped through various infomercials and evangelical church services before settling on the KIRO 7 morning news. I watched as Julie Francavilla and Chris Egert talked about the latest headlines, before deferring to Jenni Hogan for an update on local traffic conditions. And there she was, Jenni Hogan in all her glory. She said something about Twitter, and I immediately grabbed my computer and started following her. I sent her a tweet; something to the effect of "it's so early and I can't sleep, so I'm watching KIRO!" To my surprise, she almost immediately tweeted back a friendly "Good morning!" and said that she would point to me during her next on-camera time. Once it was time for a traffic report (every 10 minutes on KIRO 7!), Jenni pointed out the spots to avoid and then pointed at the camera and flashed a big smile.

Another GoGirl trait: J started Fashion Fridays when she had an outfit she wasn't too sure about and decided to ask her Facebook friends what they thought about it. After she found out that she was pregnant with her first baby, Fashion Friday evolved into watching Jenni as the baby bump grew and grew. Check out Lil Pookette's Fashion Friday evolution:

Josh and Jenni Hogan. Could they be any cuter?

On May 20th, 2010 at 4:48pm, Siena Hogan made her world debut:

Siena only a few hours old!

Siena at 8 weeks. I dare you to find a cuter baby.

A day in the life of Siena Hogan

All in all, Jenni is one amazing woman. I can only hope to be as confident, talented, and successful as she is a few years from now! It's truly an honor to be able to learn from J, and I'm so excited to see where this friendship/mentorship/cheerleadership goes!