Born on January 25, 1973 in Golden, Colorado, Ami Cusack is the daughter of Richard, a top gun pilot and explosives engineer, and Virginia, a former substitute English teacher and homemaker. Upon graduating high school, she attended Rocky Mountain School of Art ad Design in Denver and subsequently became one of the original six employees of a Golden-based nutritional company called Experiment and Applied Sciences (EAS). She soon became the company's charitable director, and in 1998, after the company grew to over 350 employees, Ami decided to leave after the company was sold. She headed to destinations Australia, Thailand, Tahiti, Iceland, Japan and Africa.
Coming home to the United States, Ami worked at a coffee shop, where she thinks she found "the greatest job in the world." Currently working as a nanny for a six-year-old, she looks forward to being a mother herself, and taking care of her family. She still takes part in various charitable activities and has been named an Ambassador for the Colorado Chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
In 1996, Ami's 18-year-old younger brother, Kyle, became a victim of a drunk driver. The death of her brother then led her mother to conduct motivational speaking to high school students to warn them about the consequences of drunk driving.
As a contestant on Survivor: Vanuatu, Cusack was one of the strongest female competitors in the game. When the tribes merged into Alinta, she and her fellow tribe member, Leann Slaby, easily assumed leadership positions, to the distaste of the other players. She was voted off the island on Day 33, after receiving four of the six votes that were cast. Ami returns to reality television as one of the Survivor favorites competing against ten fans on its sixteenth installment, Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites.
(Photo courtesy of CBS)