Underly comes from a family of meat cutters. Her maternal grandmother, Harriet Austin, owned a market with her husband and maintained her meat-cutter's license into her nineties. Her paternal grandmother, Cylia, worked as a butcher on a farm during the Great Depression. Underly grew up in South Bend, Indiana.[2]
Underly started her career by working in her father's butcher shop. Underly attended Southwestern Michigan College for two years.[2] Then she worked at Martin's Super Market in South Bend, starting in 1988 and was eventually accepted into the apprentice meat cutter's program.[2] Underly worked as an apprentice for three years. She did experience sexism at work, with some men refusing to train her.[5] However, her ability to cut meat allowed her to make enough money to put herself through college.[6] She graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University in 1995.[2]
Underly started working with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) in 1997 to create pricing software for retailers.[2] Later, she worked with NCBA to create new cuts of steak, including the flatiron steak and the Denver Cut.[2][7] In 2002, she started Range, Inc. in Fulton Market in Chicago where she is the CEO. Underly has also taught classes on how to butcher animals.[5][9] She developed online training.[10]
In 2011, she published a book, The Art of Beef Cutting, which was a James Beard Foundation Award finalist.[2] The book deals with the basic principals of meat cutting and includes 450 color photos of each cut.[7]
