Dr. Pamela Gurley

Dr. Pamela Gurley (born November 8, 1975) is an African-American content strategy expert, philanthropist, author, and speaker. She is the founder and CEO of Clark and Hill Enterprise, IAMDRPGURLEY, and Brown Girl and Brown Boy Literacy Foundation. Dr. Gurley is an Army veteran and former civil servant and worked with the United States Federal government for over 14 years.
Dr. Gurley is the world renowned author of I Am Not A Stereotype: I Am H.E.R., Amazon best-selling book Bl@ck Girl Activist: Changing the Narrative of Black Women, and the Brown Girl and Brown Boy multilingual children’s books series. She is an internationally and domestically acclaimed transformational speaker, delivering speeches on entrepreneurship, leadership, mental wellness, and empowerment. She has been featured in various leading news publications and magazines such as Forbes, Huffington Post, Hype Magazine, Rolling Out, and several others.
==Early life and education==
Pamela, named after her mother, was born on November 8, 1975, in Killeen, Texas (her father was active duty military and stationed at Fort Hood, Texas). At six months old, she had been consistently sick and not taking to any baby formula, resulting in weight loss and constant hospitalizations. The doctors had no diagnosis for her. Her great-grandmother, Daisy Carthens, who raised Pamela's mother after the premature death of her daughter when Pamela's mom was 18 months, told Pamela's mother to bring her to her in Washington, DC. Pamela was taken to her grandmother and fed whole milk, and given vitamins by mouth. Within weeks, Pamela began to gain weight and became a healthy and thriving baby. 
At 18 months, Pamela's dad was stationed in Hawaii, and the family, which at the time was just her dad, mom, and older sister, Rolonda, relocated to Hawaii - driving from Washington, DC, to California before catching a flight to Oahu, Hawaii. Her family resided in Hawaii until Pamela was five years old before her father received his next duty station - Fort Stewart, Georgia. Her family, which now also included her younger sister, made the trip back to the mainland. From the age of five, Pamela attended elementary, junior high, and high school in Georgia and every summer and spring break in Washington, DC - in which the different cultures between the two taught Pamela a lot about the world around her, and it was very different from Hawaii.
Back on the mainland, Pamela was a very active and inquisitive child and loved trying new things. She participated in cheerleading and softball in grade school and taught herself to crochet, paint, and draw while in junior high school. In high school, Pamela ran track and was the President of the Science Club during her senior year. 
Pamela was an avid reader and gifted writer of poetry. Books were an outlet for her there was nothing she would not read (even her mother's Master's thesis to edit while in 9th grade). In 9th grade, she attended the Upward Bound program at Savannah State College, where she was the Editor-and-Chief of the summer magazine. She loved doing editorial work for the magazine, as well as writing articles in it. By the time she graduated high school in 1994, she had poetry published in two compilation books and several poems written in journals (which have both been unpublished to this day). 
In the fall of 1994, Pamela began attending Columbus State University to pursue her degree in nursing before changing it to psychology. In 1995, Pamela took a lifeguarding course as an elective and landed her first job as a lifeguard. From 1995-1997, she worked at the college and at Georgia YMCAs located in Hinesville, Buckhead, and Decatur. In 1997, Pamela joined the military.
In 1999, Pamela began attending Saint Leo University to finish her Bachelor’s in Psychology and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2001. From 2002-2004, she attended Central Michigan University to pursue Master's in Health Administration. In 2014, Pamela completed her Doctorate in Management with a concentration in Organizational Development and Change from Colorado Technical University.
==Career==
After graduating with her BA in Psychology in 2001, Pamela relocated from Georgia back to the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. She spent the summer interning at a school in Philadelphia, PA - working with elementary children with behavioral issues. When 9-11 happened, she relocated back to Georgia and began graduate school.
===Military career===
In April 1997, wanting a break from college, Pamela enlisted in the United States Army, becoming a Medical Specialist (Soldier Medic). She attended Basic Training in Fort Leonardwood, MS, and Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. After AIT, Pamela was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas, and worked at Darnall Army Medical Center in the Pediatric and Well Baby Clinic. After nearly two years of active duty, Pamela was medically boarded from the Army with a temporary disability retirement; and a year later, she was permanently retired from the Army.
===Federal government career===
In 2002, she became an independent contractor (small business owner) as a Family Advocacy Program educator for the Department of the Army’s Army Community Service (ACS). She developed training and educated soldiers and their family members on the topics of domestic violence, child abuse prevention, stress, and anger management. In 2005, Pamela began her federal career as a Management Analyst for the Office of Training and Professional Development for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). An opportunity to cross-train in the budget area set the precedence of how Pamela would spend the remaining of her federal career.
In December 2009, Pamela, then a GS-12, took a leave of absence from the Bureau of ATF to relocate to Germany after marrying a military officer. In 2010, she resigned from her federal position. In 2011, she returned from Germany via an Early Return of Dependent (EROD) and moved to the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. She accepted a government contract position in Edgewood, Maryland, with Camber Corporation as a Senior Budget Analyst for the Department of Defense, Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense. 
In 2013, she resigned from Camber Corporation to return to federal civil service as a GS-13 Budget Formulation Analyst with the Department of State, International Information Programs (IIP). In 2014 and after completing her doctorate, she accepted a GS-14 position as the Supervisory Budget Officer for the Bureau of Public Affairs. Leading and managing a staff of three to four employees, Pamela also had funding responsibilities for several domestic programs and five international countries in four regions (Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Johannesburg, South Africa; Brussels, Belgium; Manila, Philippines; and London, United Kingdom).
In February 2019, Pamela accepted a GS-15 position with the Merit Systems Protection Board as the Agency Budget Director. She used her formulation, budget, and technical writing expertise to manage and defend the agency's $46,835,000 budget before the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Congressional authorities.
On November 7, 2020, Pamela resigned from her federal position to become a full-time entrepreneur.
===Entrepreneurial career===
In 2017, Pamela launched her first company, Clark and Hill Enterprise, a company providing technical writing, content writing, copyrighting, and other business writing, as well as other business services (i.e., business strategy consulting, start-up consulting, editorial services, etc.). Over the past five years, Clark and Hill’s services have expanded to providing media, small-scale public relations content, voiceover, social media content, publishing, and notary services.
In 2018, Pamela launched her second company and personal brand, IAMDRPGURLEY – a platform supporting her speaking, teaching, and philanthropic efforts to empower, grow, and motivate others, as well as lead and challenge social norms.
===Author===
In November 2019, Dr. Gurley published her first book titled “ I Am Not A Stereotype: I Am H.E.R.” Throughout the book she advocated the concept of being imperfect and showed flaws as a part of life. The same year, Dr. Gurley published another book “The PR Prep Guide.” The book details the basic seven need-to-knows on hiring and retaining a publicist.
In March 2021, she released her second and third books, Bl@ck Girl Activist: Changing the Narrative of Black Women.” The book became an Amazon best-seller and is regarded as her best work as a social activist through which she strived to change the community's perspective towards black and brown girls. And on June 3, 2021, Pamela released the first three sets of books in her Brown Girl and Brown Boy multilingual children's books series. She has since published four additional titles (eighteen books total) and will release two more multilingual titles in November and December of 2022. In Oct 2021, Pamela published “The PR Prep Guide” and has also been a part of three anthologies - one with Pamela as a Visionary Author.
Pamela loves to write books that spark imagination, and her books show Black and Brown children that they are valuable, powerful, and worth fighting for. After publishing several of her books, she realized she wanted to do more than write; she wanted to make a difference. And so, she embarked on a new journey: advocating for and holistically celebrating literacy. As a part of her advocacy, she curated a multi-city Book Tour and Literacy Fest in 2021 and has since hosted in cities such as Jackson, MS., Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL., and Houston, TX. In 2022, after two years of hosting the curated events, she expand her advocacy and founded the Brown Girl and Brown Boy Literacy Foundation.
==Bibliography==
===English===
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* Brown Girl and Brown Boy multilingual children's books series -18 books (2021-2022)
* Gurley, Pamela (December 21, 2021). Bl@ck Girl Activist: A Shift in Social Change. Clark and Hill Enterprise. Little Publishing. ISBN 978-0578343327.
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===Spanish===
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===French===
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==Awards and recognitions==
Dr. Gurley has been credited with various awards for her work towards empowering the brown and black women and the community at large. Some of the awards won by her include:
* RadioOne EmpowerHER Award
* Cultured Pearl Award
* I Am That Girl Award
* Woman Doing it Big
* BOSS Elite Awards 
==In the media==
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==References==
==External links==
* Personal Website
* Company Website
* Brown Girl and Brown Boy Literacy Foundation
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* Dr. Gurley on TikTok
Category:1975 births
Category:African-American people
Category:American philanthropists
Category:African-American writers
Category:American keynote speakers
Category:Saint Leo University alumni
Category:Central Michigan University alumni