Senior Spotlight: Reid Quiggins' Investment in Cooking

This piece is part of our Senior Stories series, in which we highlight GU students throughout the year.

Name: Reid Quiggins
Major: economics with a minor in finance
Hometown: Beaverton, Oregon

Reid Quiggins (’24) comes from a food-loving family. His grandma knows everyone at the local farmers market by first name and his hobby-chef sister seems to have an innate understanding of flavors. Even though Quiggins always saw himself separate from that, he still made himself Dutch babies every week after long Saturday runs in high school.

“I didn’t realize how much I was picking up just through osmosis, and how much I came to value food,” Quiggins says.

“Then, I was faced with the dining hall.”

Since he spent his first year on Zoom from home, Quiggins didn’t become a COG regular until sophomore year, when sharing space with five other men made cooking nearly impossible. Once junior year came around, Quiggins was ready to get back in the kitchen.

“During the pandemic, I cooked so much and I got to try so many different things because I had so much time,” Quiggins says. “I had a sourdough starter, I made fresh pasta and all this stuff that takes a lot of time. That completely evaporated my sophomore year, so I spent junior year getting back into it.”

Starting an Instagram account dedicated to his cooking was only meant to motivate him to try new dishes, but six months later, Quiggins finds himself with over 100,000 followers waiting to see what @reidsactivekitchen will cook next from his Kennedy Apartments kitchen.

Everything he’s done with his account has been self-taught, from the basics of videography and Adobe Premiere to developing the next item for his famous series, “Dutch Baby Detox.”

Every Sunday, Quiggins takes his followers on a journey as he creates various interpretations of a Dutch baby, a baked eggy pancake similar to Yorkshire pudding, while giving the mind a detox from the digital noise around us. Quiggins motto for the detox is simple: tell people what he would want to hear himself.

“More and more, I’ve learned that what I can think of and produce is going to be the most unique and draw people in,” Quiggins says. “I don’t really like social media at all. Since I first got on it, I just haven’t liked the progression of what it’s done to me and my friends, and how it disengages us from the real world. I wanted to take control for myself and use it as a tool instead of something that’s victimizing me to the algorithms, so I flipped the script for it and started making that my message.”

Most of the videos in the detox series are centered around attention spans and the importance of focus. Each video is motivational in nature and encourages viewers to put down their phones and try something new, sometimes offering advice on time management or featuring a fun fact.

“For me, food really is just the medium through which I’m trying to convey my message,” Quiggins says.

Quiggins tries to learn something from each video he releases, which allows him to slowly grow his confidence as both a chef and videographer so he can incorporate new tricks into each release.

As his audience grows, so does the amount of time he spends on his account. He estimates he spends around 25-30 hours a week — a little more than what he spends on school.

As for his favorite Dutch baby so far?

“It’s always the most recent one,” Quiggins says. “I made a strawberry basil one for this upcoming video, and it’s just next level.”

When he’s not developing recipes and editing videos, Quiggins is likely either running on the Centennial Trail, catching up on economics coursework or throwing clay in the ceramics studio.

Quiggins ran cross country through high school and still runs semi-competitively, competing in local races and serving as Running Club executive member. He also ran for the adjunct team that trains alongside Gonzaga’s Division I cross country and track teams, which allows for serious runners to train with the team without the pressure to compete.

“[Running] has just morphed into something that helps structure my days,” Quiggins says. “I wake up, have something for breakfast, journal and then I’m off to run. It gets me out the door and I wouldn’t want to go without it.”

Though he no longer runs with the cross country team, Quiggins is still logging 10+ hour training weeks.

Quiggins stumbled upon economics during his junior year of high school and enjoyed the way it combined math with tangible problem solving. At Gonzaga, he continued with his econ journey by adding on a finance minor and joining Investment Club, where he serves as treasurer.

The finance club provides students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the stock market through portfolio management, networking and competitions. Last winter, the club won a mergers and acquisitions competition, and the surprising victory helped Quiggins narrow his post-grad path.

“It was a moment of ‘oh, I’m good at this,’” Quiggins says. “I just really liked the complexity of it. When you’re buying and selling someone else’s business, it’s kind of their baby, and you're taking them through this transaction of something they’ve built up for years. I find that really fascinating, so I’m open to my path continuing that way.”

Quiggins will be working in consulting post-graduation in Seattle with West Monroe and looks forward to his next step.