Jacquel Tucker

Jacquel Tucker (formerly Edwards) was born in Jamaica in the rural community of Higgins Land, St. Ann. She is the youngest of eight children by her dad Jeremiah Edwards who was a Pastor and her mom Lydia Edwards who was a Church Youth Director and the Chairman of the local all age school in Higgins Land. The family struggled with poverty and they lived in a tiny three bedroom home where Jacquel shared a room with three of her sisters and a niece and nephew.

At the tender age of ten years old, Jacquel started attending Westwood High School where her sister Chandlyn was already a student. She boarded on campus with her sister and was very shy and quiet. She was not from a popular area in Jamaica and she did not have the cool clothes and shoes that many of the other girls had. There was rarely any new school uniforms, new shoes or backpack at the start of the school year. Her parents could barely afford the school fee for her and her sister to attend the school but God made it possible.

Jacquel excelled in her latter years as Westwood taught her to become a lady. She was a top academic student – usually first or second in her class, a dancer and a choreographer, a cheerleader and an athlete who did track and field and played on the school’s Netball Team. She was also active in several student clubs such as the Key Club and UNESCO. She even wrote short love stories that circulated throughout the school. Many thought she would become a writer.

After she graduated from Westwood, Jacquel attended Brown’s Town Community College for a year and was then awarded a full academic C.A.S.S scholarship to the University of Maine in the USA. She studied Hotel and Restaurant Management & Tourism. This opportunity changed the course of her life.

Jacquel’s experience in the hospitality industry spans over 25 years. She has worked for Tourism Action Plan/The Jamaica Tourist Board and then worked her way up in the hotel industry in the USA. Her career started at the front desk and she was quickly promoted to a Reservationist, a Sales Coordinator, a Sales Manager to finally a Director of Sales & Marketing. She has been a successful Hotel Sales Leader for over 15 years working in major cities such as Newark, New York & Buckhead Atlanta and working for major brands such as Hilton, Starwood and Wyndham.

In 2015, while still working as a Director of Sales at the Doubletree By Hilton Atlanta Buckhead, God gave her the vision to start her non-profit The Jamaica Project USA with her husband Shun Tucker. She currently works with her missions team to transform rural communities and schools in Jamaica by providing basic necessities and educational resources for rural schools including Westwood.

Jacquel has also designed a line of Westwood Girls Rock! shirts in solidarity of the strong sisterhood that Westwood girls share.

The shirt can be purchased at www.coolstylz.com and at the CoolStylz Jamaica store (located at 20 Duke Street in Falmouth Trelawny) and $5 from each shirt goes to the school.

At the WOGA tea party in June 2017, Jacquel donated $125,000 Jamaican dollars to Westwood which included donations from the sale of the shirts.

In October 2016, Hilton Hotels sponsored one of Jacquel’s community projects which was to provide a proper library and a new computer lab for the Higgins Land Primary and Junior High School. This year she will be launching The Jamaica Project USA “We Care” initiative focusing on giving back to service industry workers and the “Just One” education initiative.

In November 2016, Jacquel walked away from a very successful and lucrative career in the Hotel Industry and started her own company, Global Hospitality Expert Solutions. Her company provides consulting, sales task force and sales training solutions for the hospitality and tourism industry. She has also created a culture of giving back at GHES. The company is focusing on giving back to students in the hospitality industry by providing them with educational resources, facilitating more contact with our hotel leaders and helping to increase internship opportunities.

Jacquel is in the process of penning her first children’s book which chronicles her life growing up as a small child and how she transitioned from a poor rural country girl in Jamaica to having her non-profit and owning her own successful company in the USA. Her goal is to show young students that with God, anything is possible so dream big and live a purposeful life! Her book will be released in the Summer 2018.