Alumni Spotlight: Gina Farmer
Advertising alum Gina Farmer (B.A. '01) used the knowledge gained through her Meadows experience to catapult herself into the world of entrepreneurship in a variety of industries.
Gina Farmer (B.A. ’01) is this week’s featured alum in our new Alumni Spotlight series for the This Week at Meadows e-newsletter. Each week, a different Meadows alum will be highlighted for their accomplishments post-graduation.
Meadows strives to prepare its students for whatever they may pursue after graduation, and sometimes the Meadows experience sets alumni on a different career path than what they originally expected. Gina Farmer’s time as an advertising student gave her the tools to create a job market for herself after college.
Shortly after graduating, Farmer ventured into the realm of entrepreneurship and created her luxury stationery boutique Diamond Affairs. Learning how to use Excel and graphic arts programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator gave her the experience she needed to start her first business designing wedding invitations, stationery and other paper products used in a social setting.
“It was the foundational skills within the upper-level courses that I used to propel and launch me into that career at the time,” Farmer explains. “My experience at Meadows gave me the confidence to walk into uncharted territory and start my first business in a new industry to me.”
After this successful foray into entrepreneurship, Farmer sold Diamond Affairs and worked on other innovative ventures like The Hair Bar, a chain of blow-dry salons in the DFW area, and The Dough Dough, safe-to-eat raw cookie dough bakeries.
Her most recent undertaking had Farmer pivoting to another new industry: gems and jewelry. She began her gemological studies in 2017 at the Gemological Institute of America and soon she graduated with the GIA Graduate Gemology degree allowing her to pursue her passion for grading and valuing diamonds and jewelry. She utilized this knowledge to become a personal property appraiser specializing in jewelry with Gem Facets Appraisal and serves as the principal Graduate Gemologist on staff.
“°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÔ¤²â taught me to create a circle of influence and surround myself with people who know more about the area I am interested in than I do, and learn from them,” says Farmer, who used this knowledge during her gemology training. “I’ve been able to use my networking skills to build synergistic relationships amongst my network to not only benefit myself, but also benefit others within that network.”
And Farmer continues to influence the network she is involved in. She is currently a mentor for students at °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÔ¤²â Meadows School of Arts and Parish Episcopal School, extending her wisdom on entrepreneurship to those looking to follow a similar path.
In addition to mentoring and working as a personal property appraiser, Farmer has followed her ambitious academic roots and began her legal studies at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in August of 2023, with plans to complete her Juris Doctor degree in 2026 and specialize in Artificial Intelligence and IP law.