Founder Friday Presents: Fireside Chat with CEO of Girl Meets Dirt

Reserve your ticket and invite your friends to network and meet the new IEC Director Peter Rowan, hear Audra’s founder journey and get the inside scoop on ways you and your business can benefit and volunteer in the IEC programs!

Get your ticket today! Click HERE 

Timeline:

• 4:30-5 p.m.: Networking (Free food and hosted bar)

• 5-6 p.m.: Fireside chat with Audra Query Lawlor

Audra Query Lawlor, Founder & President, Girl Meets Dirt

A lover of words, growing things and eating them, Audra Query Lawlor once moonlit as a Currency & Interest Rate Derivatives Marketer on Wall Street. As Founder, President, and OG (Original Girl) of Girl Meets Dirt she now runs a successful specialty food company with 15 employees on Orcas Island that has recently acquired a winery license and will launch a line of naturally fermented orchard fruit sparkling wines in 2022. Having moved to Orcas Island after 10 years in New York City, she spent two years getting her hands dirty, seeking rootedness and teaching herself to preserve fruit. When a neighbor told her the lore of 100-year old orchards not a stone’s throw away, she knew she’d found a story she needed to tell. A mom of two, native of the Pacific Northwest and natural sugar shaker, she has a BA in Economics from Seattle University and is a graduate of the university’s Honors Program. She also has an MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from Columbia University.

Girl Meets Dirt

Girl Meets Dirt was born of the land. Grew limbs through storms, gained strength with rain, knowledge with history, rootedness with dirt under her fingernails. Seedlings rose and bore fruit. And she watched, curious and hungry, and learned the art of stretching bounty into winter. This is where the story ends (it always ends) but begins anew – with worn muddy boots and kitchen clogs – a journey in steps, stems, pear seeds, plum pits and apple flesh. A journey to the fruit of the matter and back, on one island farmette.

Girl Meets Dirt is an Orcas Island-based, fruit preserves company and winery specializing in heirloom jams, shrubs, bitters and petillant natural made from heritage island fruit. The bounty of orchard fruit in the San Juan Islands and their capacity to feed this community for over 135 years is our inspiration. To keep the agricultural legacy of the islands alive and continue to support the orchard economy, we have stewardship arrangements with island growers. Our effort is to preserve the community, the trees and their fruit by sharing the magic of simple, old-school varietals, preserved for enjoyment throughout the year. We have a growing wholesale & distribution business, selling our preserves to specialty food and cheese shops, as well as grocers across the country. We also have a retail shop, online store and do weekly seasonal farmers markets in San Juan County. We are an eight-time Good Food Awards Winner and pride ourselves in making exceptional, unique, handcrafted preserves and now wine! Woman-owned and operated, island-grown.

SeattleU Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (IEC)

Housed in the Albers School of Business, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center supports all Seattle University students and alumni as well as the greater Seattle entrepreneurial ecosystem with the mission to Accelerate Entrepreneurial Leaders for the Common Good. The Albers School of Business and Economics is a nationally ranked business school with the mission to develop exceptional business leaders who are values-driven and committed to advancing the common good.