Julie Yau Yee Tam was born in Houston, Texas in 1981. Her parents immigrated to the United States in the early 70s to earn their PhDs. Her mother was a petroleum engineer and her father was a geophysicist; both of them had worked for oil companies in Houston before the oil crisis and were laid off after the oil prices crashed. It was during this time that they divorced; Julie was about two at the time, and her father then remarried and had two more children. Her mother never remarried and started her own realty company called Lyn Realty and is currently a broker and owner of the business. Julie spent her time between the two households after their divorce and has grown up with two other siblings. Julie attended Banff, then went to Second Baptist, along with her other siblings. From there, she attended Rice University, where she became interested in TV News and began to prepare for a career as a reporter and anchor. After she graduated, Julie applied to be a reporter in mid-market level stations and went to work in East Texas, where she was the first Asian American reporter. After ten years as a reporter, working in various cities across the country, including Louisville, Kentucky and Dallas, Texas, she left TV News and became a licensed realtor at Lyn Realty.
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