Happy Birthday, Jeremy

Happy Birthday @jeremy_andrus 🔥

Most people know the version of Jeremy that’s been written up in articles or introduced on stages—CEO of @traegergrills, business school guest speaker, award-winning leader. But that’s not the story I want to tell today.

Today I want to talk about the real story—the one built on scraped knees, early mornings, rejection letters, and starting over… again and again.

As a kid, he moved all the time. New schools, new neighborhoods, new friends—just as he was finding his footing. Imagine coming back from England in junior high with a British accent, trying to find your place in a Boston school. Not easy.

At 8 years old, in sub-zero Minnesota temps, he delivered newspapers before school while most kids were still asleep. By high school, he was mowing lawns to pay for college. He earned his way from the very beginning.

He didn’t coast through school. He worked and hustled—pushing to make the high school tennis team, reapplying after getting rejected from a top business school, figuring it out when the “plan” didn’t work out. No shortcuts, no handouts. Just grit.

His business journey? It’s not just Traeger or Skullcandy. It’s full of “no’s,” mistakes, false starts, and doors that slammed shut. But he kept showing up. Again. And again. And again.

Jeremy is not his title or success. He’s built from challenge after challenge, trial after trial, one earned inch at a time. He carries a chip on his shoulder—not for show—but to push himself harder. To be better. For his team. For our family. For himself.

What I love most is that those early years—those freezing mornings, rejections, and lonely transitions—didn’t harden him. They humbled him. They shaped a man who is unbelievably kind, unshakably steady, and ferociously loyal.

His life isn’t impressive because of the ease. It’s extraordinary because of the hard.

So today, we celebrate more than a birthday—we celebrate a life well-earned. A heart well-shaped. A soul refined through fire. And a man who’s still becoming.

We love you, Jeremy. You are everything we admire—and even more that the world doesn’t see. Happy Birthday. ❤️