By Keysha Drexel
Journal editor
While most people would be nervous about being scrutinized by millions of viewers on national television, the heat from the spotlight didn’t even make one Mountain Brook mother break a sweat.
Jann Robinson, a caterer and culinary consultant, will appear on the debut episode of a new CBS reality series called “The Job” at 7 p.m. on Feb. 8.
“Once you seen death eye to eye, very little scares you,” Jann said. “I’ve seen the worst that life can throw at you, so I knew I could take whatever happened up on that stage.”
Jann had to learn a lot about being courageous during tough times when she lost her husband, Dave, to cancer in 2006.
Dave Robinson, owner of Dave’s Deli in Mountain Brook, died on Sept. 28, 2006, just weeks before Jann gave birth to their sixth child.
“The first few days (after Dave died) were surreal. I was really living in a cloud, and it took me a long time to come out of it,” she said.
Jann said when her husband died, she immediately started thinking about how she was going to support the couple’s children and manage their catering business on her own.
The couple started Backstage Catering together in the 1990s, she said. Jann also runs Jann Robinson Culinary Living, a Southern lifestyle consulting company.
“We were always a team and it was hard to think about how to move forward without him, but I knew I had to take care of our children,” she said.
About two years after her husband passed away, Jann said, she took stock of her life and made a bold decision.
“The life I had known had totally changed. I took stock of my heart’s desires and decided to go after my dreams and start building my own personal brand and get on television. I started in 2009 with the goal of getting my own national lifestyle program,” she said.
Throughout their 14-year marriage, Jann said, her husband was always supportive of her desire to be on television.
“He knew about those dreams and he always encouraged me, and he believed in me more than anyone else. I took strength when I decided to go forward with these goals knowing that he would want me to do this,” she said.
Jann said she knows her dream is one that comes with a lot of risks, but she said she has never been one to shrink from taking chances.
“I’m a Southern girl, a steel magnolia. I guess I’m a bit of a gambler because I seek high places and take risks to get there,” she said.
Jann began working towards her dreams by checking out casting calls for TV series and building her personal brand.
She read about “The Job” on a CBS website and decided to try out for the show.
“I told them in my casting interviews that the reason I’m doing this is for my children. I want to show them that no matter what life throws at you, you can pull yourself together, put on some lipstick and keep moving forward,” she said.
Evidently, the show’s casting crew was found Jann’s story compelling, and she soon got a call from executives at “The Job” saying she had been chosen for the series.
On “The Job,” Jann will compete against four other contestants to win a job with The Palm, a fine dining restaurant with 25 locations in cities like Atlanta, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington, D.C.
Hosted by Lisa Ling, each episode of “The Job” will feature five candidates participating in several rounds of eliminations challenges as they compete for their dream job. Contestants can get on-the-spot job offers from three other companies besides The Palm, at which point they would have to decide on whether to take the job or remain in the running for the job at The Palm.
Jann traveled back and forth to New York City for about two months to film the show.
“Fortunately, my children are older now, and I have a great support system of family and friends that watched after them while I was out of town,” she said.
Jann said the connections she made while filming in New York will be helpful to her down the road as she continues to build her brand and pursue her dream of having her own television show.
“It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and I know I’ll be in contact with the people I met through the show for a long time,” she said.
Jann said she is grateful for whatever personal boost being on the show will give her but said the audience she hopes she reaches the most are her children.
“I could have ignored this opportunity, but my heart told me to pursue it, and I hope that’s what my children do throughout their lives–follow their hearts,” she said.
For more information on “The Job,” visit www.cbs.com/shows/the-job.
