Jady Regard

Hometown

New Iberia

What I do

Owner and Chief Nut Officer, Cane River Pecan Company; toy company owner; children's book author; alligator hunting guide.

Why I moved away

"I went to LSU, and I graduated from LSU. I really wanted to live out west, so I moved to Colorado for two years, and I worked as a ski instructor in Breckenridge for two years. Then I decided to go to graduate school -- Texas A&M. But around 1995, I heard about a hockey team coming to Lafayette. When I was at LSU, I worked for the Dale Brown and the basketball team, and I really enjoyed my experience in sports while a student at LSU. So when I heard about the hockey team, I said, you know, school can wait, and I decided to try to get a job with this hockey team. And I did. We were very successful. And then after about two years, I got recruited to go to Biloxi, Mississippi, and I worked for a hockey team there for about a year and a half, and then I got recruited to come back to Lafayette to run the hockey team, to be the general manager. So I did that, and I did that for four years, and I really wanted to see where the sports could take me. I took a job next with Chicago Bears the National Football League, and I worked for the Bears for nearly two years. My father was ill at that time when I was in Chicago, and I ended up coming back to Louisiana after he passed away to run the pecan company."

Why I moved back

"I missed all the things that I loved about Louisiana. Crawfish, tailgating and LSU football and duck hunting. Just all the things that people love so much about this part of the country and I miss the people, right? I worked in the National Football League. You can't ask for a better experience if you're going to be in sports. It's the pinnacle of sports. I lived in Colorado, and it doesn't get more beautiful than Colorado. But neither one of those places, no matter how cool or how beautiful, they didn't have the people that we have here. And it makes a difference if you want to live a happy life."