Charlie Quimby

Charlie Quimby is writer and consultant who spends time on both sides of the Continental Divide (Colorado and Minnesota).

He was president of Words At Work, the Minneapolis marketing communications firm he founded, from 1988 to 2005. During that period, his speechwriting and annual reports won national awards, and he co-authored books on urban planning, quality management, influencing defense policy and design education. Words At Work remains one of the clients of his independent consultancy, Quimby+Quimby, which focuses on assisting nonprofit organizations with development, marketing and education campaigns.

He has written Across the Great Divide since late 2004, as a reaction to the widening political divide in the country.

In addition, he is a Communications Fellow at Growth & Justice, a progressive Minnesota think tank that focuses on public policy related to economic and social justice. As an independent Fellow, he draws upon the organization's work to advance his writing about the principles of effective, progressive government.

During 11 years at Honeywell, he produced management, customer and employee communications, and wrote an article that won the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review. He has served on a number of professional and nonprofit boards. Recent community service includes chairing the Board of Minnesota Center for Book Arts and serving on advisory groups that developed and introduced a community vision for the city of Golden Valley. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Playwrights' Center.

Disclosure Statement:
I am not being paid for any blog posting here. Across the Great Divide reflects my personal interests and opinions only.

In my capacity as a Growth & Justice Communications Fellow, I receive a stipend which provides substantially less than 10 percent of my annual income. I have access to the research and other resources of Growth & Justice to illuminate my writing, and I assist them with communications strategy and outreach to help the public better understand their work related to economic and social justice.

For my writing that reflects Growth & Justice research and its agenda, I will use the Fellow title in publications, blog postings, comments and other public media. Otherwise, what appears under my name is my work and reflects my opinions alone.

I consider myself a political progressive, but not a political activist, preferring for more than 35 years to volunteer and give money to non-partisan cultural, educational, social service and community organizations. I have attended DFL party caucuses twice in my life — in 1972 and 2006. And I have made modest contributions to only two candidates for national office — Paul Wellstone and Keith Ellison, well before either emerged as a leading contender.

Readers seeking to find a leftist or anti-business bias in my work are reminded that I worked for more than a decade for a major defense contractor and built a business that successfully served many of Minnesota's largest corporations. A community free of war, poverty, ignorance and environmental degradation offers the ultimate pro-business climate.