One of Pam Palmieri’s earliest memories is dancing around her living room to the Peter Pan soundtrack on LP. “Much to everyone’s chagrin, I would listen to the song ‘I’m Flying’ and pretend I was flying,” she says. “My younger sisters probably enjoyed it the first five times.”
When she got a little older and realized she would never fly like Peter Pan, the secretary to the vice president for government relations settled for the next best thing — parachuting. She was on the first civilian team to parachute into Pasadena’s Rose Bowl in 1990 for Fourth of July celebrations, and met her husband while jumping out of planes. She received her private pilot license in 2004 and has been in the air ever since.
“When time, circumstances and opportunities are passing you by, you make a decision to set aside other interests and pursuits and make it happen,” she says of her decision to get a pilot’s license. “You’ve only got 100 years to live.”
Palmieri grew up in Orange County, Calif., where she received her paralegal certificate from the University of San Diego. After working as a paralegal and legal software trainer for many years in California, and starting her own floral and embroidery business, she and her husband moved to Michigan in 2006. Palmieri has been working at the University since January 2007.
The couple owns a Cessna 172 XP, which they use to explore Michigan by air. On a flight last year over Traverse City, Palmieri says she was floored by the view.
“I never realized how tropical-looking the water was,” she says. “Little by little we’re exploring this great state. Michigan is just beautiful.”
A few years ago, the Palmieris also flew cross-country, taking off from Los Angeles and landing in Cape Cod three days later. “It was 21 hours of absolutely amazing flying,” she says.
Palmieri stays on solid ground for her job, where she performs a variety of tasks that help fulfill the office’s mission to service University interests and facilitate communication and interaction with government officials at the community, state and federal level.
“What I like best about it is that the work is interesting. It’s relevant to current happenings in Ann Arbor, the University and in Michigan as a whole. I also like that we have a very female-oriented administration,” she says. Among other tasks, Palmieri provides administrative support, manages and maintains the departmental database, schedules meetings, and plans and coordinates department activities and events.
This June Palmieri will fly in the Air Race Classic, a three-day transcontinental air race for women that began in 1977. She and her race partner, Holly Czupich, a business assistant at USA Jet Airlines at Willow Run Airport, met through a women’s pilot organization, the Ninety-Nines.
“The race is very competitive but also very much a learning experience. We’ll help each other along in the race; there’s a lot of camaraderie involved in it,” Palmieri says.
Some of the 30 or so teams registered in the Air Race have been participating for decades, so while Palmieri says she and Czupich are going for the first-place spot they’ll be pleased with making the top 10. One of the contestants who came in fifth last year, 87-year-old Margaret Ringenberg, was a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) in World War II.
During the race Palmieri and Czupich will focus on getting the best performance out of their aircraft by monitoring factors such as wind speed and air temperature. “Hopefully this is the beginning of what I will do every summer as long as I can fly,” Palmieri says.
She also works at Sew M.I. Embroidery, an embroidery and digitizing business in Milan that she and her husband own.
The weekly Spotlight features staff members at the University. To nominate a candidate, please contact the Record staff at [email protected].
