With more than 50 years of experience in education, consulting, real estate, and entrepreneurship, Gail Pinkham Nelson has excelled as a leader across numerous fields and institutions—always geared toward helping people and improving lives. The owner of G&G Connections LLC since 2006, she has also served as a notary public in the state of Colorado for more than 20 years. She previously served as an independent contractor with Lerman Law Associates, P.C. and the owner of Kosha Enterprises, through which she developed residential and resort products in Mexico and the Caribbean. In the lead-up to earning her insurance and real estate licenses, she was the marketing manager and was in charge of insurance and annuities for Stanford Group Company in the early 2000s.

Ms. Nelson prepared for her professional journey with a bachelor’s in English and a Master of Arts in speech pathology from the University of Redlands in 1969 and 1970, respectively. Originally a math major, she would visit a speech clinic to study, and as time passed, she developed a strong interest in the field, eventually switching her major. She also earned a teaching credential through California and launched her career as a speech-language-hearing therapist at the Sunshine School for Orthopedically Handicapped Children. She would go on to work in this capacity at the Easter Seal Rehabilitation Center in Connecticut and ultimately advanced to the clinical supervisor at the Institute of Speech and Hearing Sciences within the North Carolina Memorial Hospital in North Carolina.

Ms. Nelson served as a speech pathologist at Lee-Harnett Mental Health Center and the Harnett County Schools from 1974 to 1976, at which point she began a 10-year position as the clinical director at North Carolina State University—lecturing on communication and communicative disorders, leading workshops, providing career and academic counseling, and building community programs for the handicapped—as well as a speech-language pathologist through her private practice in the city of Raleigh.

In addition, during this time, Ms. Nelson was active as a consultant with Rinehart and Winston Publishing Company and the Johnston County Early Childhood Intervention Program—she later consulted for Pak Mail Centers of America. She served as a speech-language pathologist at Kirk Center from 1986 to 1987 and as an account administrator and manager at First Union Securities from 1990 to 2000. She also explored her entrepreneurial side when she became the founder, owner, and manager of Horse Tack and Polo Parts in 1992 and Kellybrook Farm from 1993 to 1998—across an 80-acre ranch, she trained and showed horses while also raising her two children and four stepchildren.

Outside of her primary professional endeavors, Ms. Nelson has authored numerous papers, presentations, and journal articles on speech pathology. Some of these pieces include “An Objective Evaluation of Esophageal Speech” for Proceedings of a National Forum and Comprehensive Cancer Rehabilitation and Its Vocational Implications and the Foundation of Communication Theory Manual, a textbook written for North Carolina State University. She’s also a dedicated member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the Wake County Speech Language Professionals, and the North Carolina Council of Training Program Directors. On the civic level, she is extremely proud of serving on the City of Florence Planning Commission, where she was active as chairman from 2016 to 2023.

Looking toward the future, Ms. Nelson aims to establish CEA Fresh Farms and become a leader in commercial hydroponic food production. She has 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.