Gail Blackburn is a wife, mother and entrepreneur, as well as non-profit co-founder, author, healer and financial freedom facilitator. Her background consists of art, graphics, business, project management, computers, and web design. She has a BS in Business Management and is Co-Founder of Motivational Small Talk Inc., a non-profit that specializes in bully prevention, dwarfism awareness, disability education, diversity training and motivational speaking. Gail also enjoys volunteering, writing, many different modalities of energy healing, and is passionate about helping others to live their absolute best life now!

She and husband Bret are the average-height parents of Britney, a beautiful 14-year old little person. Gail is a native Texan and attended Southwest Texas State University through her junior year with a primary emphasis on commercial and fine arts. After spending the last 25 years in the Phoenix area, she considers herself a naturalized Arizonan. Gail attended Glendale Community College and received an associates degree in Drafting Technology, continuing on to Arizona State University where she graduated with a bachelors degree in Business Management.

In her pre-Britney days, Gail was a project manager and sr. computer analyst who pioneered a state-of-the-art computer laboratory in the groundwater hydrology field. She developed geographic information systems to ensure accuracy of data, created computer models to analyze contaminant movement in groundwater systems, presented graphical and animated illustrations in support of expert testimony in depositions and hearings, and provided testimony regarding the computer methods utilized. Gail also authored an extensive groundwater modeling users manual and provided in-depth training sessions for consultants and city officials in technical applications involving geographic information systems, statistical and geostatistical analyses, and groundwater modeling. She was going along making a good living but eventually realized something was missing that would make a good life.

So Gail and her husband Bret decided to start a family and unexpectedly began an uphill battle. Infertility surgery and treatments, and a high-risk pregnancy taught them discipline, patience, and the real value of human life. They would no longer take for granted what most couples do the ability to bear children 8-1/2 months later Gail was rushed in for an emergency c-section to save their baby, and the Blackburns learned the true meaning of divine intervention. Britney was small, but she sure was a fighter! Then, at 3-1/2 months they learned Britney had hydrocephalus, and 3 days later they learned she had achondroplasia (a form of dwarfism).

Britneys birth difference just made Gail love her all the more, and nothing in the world mattered but her health and well being. She quickly shifted her priorities over to full-mom-mode and put her career on hold. While staying at home with Britney, she researched everything she could get her hands on regarding dwarfism, and also ran the day-to-day operations of her husbands handyman business daddys HANDYMAN services until he fell off a clients 2-story roof in December of 2004, sustained his 2nd traumatic brain injury, and had to retire.

Gail was soon faced with the reality of losing their major bread winner and wondering what life would bring her next. She was doing volunteer work for a non-profit in Florida that specialized in bully prevention. At the same time, a little person friend, Mark Trombino, was starting to get out and tell his uniquely compelling story after losing his wife to a car accident. The two got together one day and realized that God knew their plans way before they did, and Motivational Small Talk was born Both Gail and Mark feel incredibly blessed to be partners and to have such an amazing opportunity to make a difference in the world!

How you react to lifes challenges can make or break you the Blackburns have chosen to not take life for granted, to appreciate each day to its fullest, and to strive to make a positive difference in the world. At Motivational Small Talk, Gails strengths are primarily utilized behind the scenes in research, speech development, power point presentations, marketing, video, and web design. She also presents on a variety of topics such as: Internet and Social Networking Safety; Parenting a Child of Difference; Marriage with a Brain Injury; Taking Care of The CareGiver; Keeping the Faith; and Staying Centered in the Eye of the Storm.

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