TLDR: Jaclyn “Jacks” Genega, 40, from New Jersey, spent fifteen years as an award-winning commercial film editor, winning a Cannes Lion, an MTV VMA, and multiple Clio Awards, before leaving the industry after surviving a violent crime and burning out from 90-hour workweeks.
She rebuilt her life through wilderness education across Europe and North America, founded Wildcard Wilderness LLC in 2023, and is the only woman in the Alone Season 13 field.
The backstory that brings Jacks Genega to the Arctic Circle is one of the more unusual in a cast full of unusual backstories. She is not a veteran, not a scientist, not a lifelong hunter.
She is a woman who spent fifteen years editing high-budget international advertising campaigns, won multiple industry awards, then walked away from the whole thing to learn how to start a fire with sticks.
The reason she walked away is important to understand what she is actually doing out there.
The Career She Left Behind
Genega’s given name is Jaclyn. She goes by Jacks professionally and has for long enough that the nickname is now simply her name.
She grew up in central New Jersey with a twin sister named Jen and a brother named Greg.
She spent more than fifteen years building a career in commercial film editing and post-production that took her from Boston to New York to Amsterdam. In Boston she was represented by the elite post-production house EDITBAR.
In Amsterdam she worked with creative agency 180 Kingsday and production companies including Team Flossy, editing campaigns for American Express, Coca-Cola, IBM, and a major Qatar Airways campaign directed by Juriaan Booij.
She also edited Tommy Hilfiger campaigns for Flossy Film.
The work won her a Cannes Lion, an MTV Video Music Award, and multiple Clio Awards.
It also required 90-hour workweeks managing extreme project deadlines, and it eventually produced a severe burnout that she describes as physical and cognitive collapse.
What Actually Changed Her Life
The burnout was real, but it was not the deepest reason she left.
In 2004, when she was 19 years old and living in Boston, Genega survived a violent crime. She was kidnapped at gunpoint by two strangers, taken to a public park, severely beaten, sexually assaulted, robbed, and left behind.
Her attackers were serial perpetrators who had victimized multiple other women across the city, a high-profile case subsequently covered by the New York Times.
For more than a decade she managed the resulting trauma through what she describes as a stubborn refusal to address it, channeling the suppressed weight into workaholism and substance use.
In 2017, the same year she relocated her editing business to Amsterdam, one of her primary attackers went to trial.
The verdict left her feeling, in her own words, sentenced to a life with permanent trauma while her attackers’ consequences remained disproportionate.
A close friend suggested she try nature.
She booked a solo traverse of the Landmannalaugar volcanic region in Iceland. On the first day she fell into a crevasse, saved only because her heavy pack wedged against the rock walls.
Later that day she felt an earthquake and watched an avalanche collapse an entire mountain face nearby.
She kept going anyway.
On Day 3, watching a white arctic fox in a field of wild mushrooms and blue butterflies, something shifted.
She came home and started over.
How She Built the Skills
Genega approached wilderness education with the same professional seriousness she had brought to commercial editing.
She enrolled at Woodland Ways in the United Kingdom and completed their Northern Forest Year in 2020, a year-long intensive taught by David McCrae in East Lothian, Scotland, traveling monthly from Amsterdam to attend.
She completed multiple solo endurance treks across the UK and Europe, including a 220-mile Coast to Coast walk across England in under 10 days, the Tour du Mont Blanc, the Westweg through the Black Forest, and a 300-mile solo expedition along the Kungsleden through Swedish Lapland in 2023, completed over 21 days.
Back in the United States she trained under Dave Canterbury and Shawn Kelly through the Pathfinder System, eventually serving as a Primary Instructor for Pathfinder School Worldwide from September 2021 to January 2023.
She graduated from the BOSS Hunter-Gatherer Program in Utah in 2024. She holds a Wilderness First Responder certification and a HAM radio operator license.
In 2023 she founded Wildcard Wilderness LLC, a mobile survival school she operates from her van, running courses across Georgia, Colorado, Virginia, and South Carolina.
The name reflects her philosophy: the wilderness can deal an unpredictable bad hand, but a prepared person becomes the wild card that changes the outcome.
What She Is Doing on Season 13
Genega was dropped at a site called Breezy Glenn on the inside bend of the Peel Channel in the Richardson Mountains.
Inside bends are lower in elevation, prone to dampness, and tend toward colder microclimates than the drier outer bends, a geographic disadvantage she had no control over.
The location contributed to severe insect activity in the early episodes, with bites concentrated on her hands that threatened her manual dexterity.
Her most debated gear decision was bringing a bow despite openly acknowledging limited proficiency with it.
The logic is familiar: a successful moose or caribou harvest changes a Season 13 campaign entirely, but the bow occupies a slot that could have held a gill net, the passive harvesting tool that Will Longley and Žiga Ogorelec built their early strategies around.
She chose a Council Tool Camp Carver axe and a Bucksaw rather than the folding saw most contestants selected, prioritizing processing efficiency over compact storage, a choice consistent with someone who has thought carefully about tool use under real conditions rather than simply following the standard gear template.
The most notable quality she brings to the competition is one that is genuinely difficult to manufacture: she has already survived something much worse than being cold and hungry in the Canadian Arctic, and she did it without anyone watching or a satellite phone to call for extraction.
That history does not make the sub-Arctic easy, but it changes what the word “hard” means to her.
For the full Season 13 cast and current standings, see our Season 13 hub.
Jacks Genega and Alone Season 13: Frequently Asked Questions
What did Jacks Genega do before Alone?
Jacks Genega spent more than fifteen years as an award-winning commercial film editor, winning a Cannes Lion, an MTV VMA, and multiple Clio Awards while working in Boston, New York, and Amsterdam for clients including American Express, Coca-Cola, and Qatar Airways. She left the industry after surviving a violent crime and burning out from extreme overwork, then rebuilt her life through wilderness education across Europe and North America.
What is Jacks Genega’s survival school?
Jacks Genega founded Wildcard Wilderness LLC in 2023, a mobile survival school she operates from her van across Georgia, Colorado, Virginia, and South Carolina. She holds a Wilderness First Responder certification and trained under Dave Canterbury at the Pathfinder School and through the BOSS Hunter-Gatherer Program in Utah.
Is Jacks Genega the only woman on Alone Season 13?
Yes. Jacks Genega is the only woman in the ten-person Season 13 field, which spans seven countries. She has spoken publicly about addressing gender-specific challenges in survival settings through her wilderness school, which offers women-specific courses alongside her general curriculum.
