Meet The Team

Pamela Slim

Pamela Slim is a speaker, author and business coach. She has been self-employed for the last sixteen years, and has worked with small, medium and large companies in various stages of growth.

Six years ago, Pam started escapefromcubiclenation.com, a blog for corporate employees who aspire to start their own business. This was a change in direction from the first ten years of her corporate consulting business, and she had to learn an entirely new way to connect with her audience and sell coaching services over the web.

Pam had no idea she was about to become a gigantic blogging and social media nerd. Her blog turned into a book and a whole series of products and programs which have helped over one thousand individuals.

Most importantly, it has given Pam the privilege of helping extremely smart, funny and generous people live more meaningful lives, and contribute great things to the world.

Her book Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur was published by Penguin/Portfolio in May, 2009, and was named Best Small Business/Entrepreneur Book of 2009 by 800 CEO Read. Pam is a proud mama of toddlers and lives in Mesa, Arizona.

Charlie Gilkey

Charlie is a speaker, soon-to-be author, and business coach. In a prior life, he was (simultaneously) a philosophy instructor and logistics office in the Army National Guard. Despite his best attempts to be otherwise, at his heart, he’s still a philosopher and guardian. You’ll see.

Since Charlie has always learned by teaching and leading others, he set up Productive Flourishing in 2007 to help creative, compassionate people learn how to bring vision into action. Along the way, that’s exploded into an internationally acclaimed website and multi-faceted business, but, at its core, it’s still the same mission of helping people thrive in life and business.

Charlie’s currently writing a book that helps small business owner/operators “fix their plane while flying it.” He’s also a regular contributor for Inc. magazine as well as many other well-known websites and platforms. He is married to Angela Wheeler and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Angela Wheeler

Angela is the backbone of the Lift Off Team. She makes sure things run smoothly, which is a lot of wrangling Charlie and Pam into the right place at the right time, as well as making sure participants are getting the information and care they need. She’s been a member of the Lift Off cadre from the very beginning, and without her, Lift Off wouldn’t lift off.

Before joining Charlie full time in the business, Angela taught sociology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology with a specialization in family dynamics and mental health, which is one way of saying that she’s spent a lot of time seeing how tight-knit social groups work.

Angela loves yoga, tutus, and sunshine. It turns out that Portland, Oregon is a great place for the first two and is sketchy on the third, but she loves the Rose City nonetheless.