Jim Palmeri

Built from Experience, Not Theory

Jim Palmeri is a transportation, tourism, funeral industry and logistics entrepreneur who built and sold successful companies over four decades. His hands-on experience running real businesses — managing people, solving problems, and delivering results under pressure — is the foundation of everything The James J. Palmeri Company does.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from DeSales University. But his real education came from the field: building organizations from the ground up, managing complex logistics under pressure, and learning what it truly takes to make a business work. That experience is what separates business coaching grounded in engineering from advice grounded in theory.

After selling his transportation company, Jim Palmeri began a second chapter that would take him far beyond the business he had built. He held senior leadership roles in the passenger transportation and tourism industries, consulted for organizations throughout North America, and helped manage transportation operations for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. Through The James J. Palmeri Company, his work expanded into business management, corporate training, tourism, logistics, and organizational development. Jim later served as Managing Director of Travel Alliance Partners, overseeing a consortium of 34 premier North American tour operators, while also serving for more than two decades as an independent director of Merchants National Bank and for five years on the board of Asian Bank. His entrepreneurial path continued as co-founder of Shore Excursions of America, developing destination experiences for the growing American river cruise industry. He subsequently became Vice President of Product Development for American Queen Steamboat Company and later Executive Vice President of Guest Experience and Product Design for American Queen Voyages, where his responsibilities extended across shore excursions, destination programs, guest experience, product development, and new revenue initiatives. Today, Jim has brought those decades of entrepreneurial, leadership, travel, and community experience back home to Martins Creek. He serves in a volunteer leadership role with the Bell Tower Cultural Center, helping develop a growing community cultural institution offering more than 40 programs each year. His career has come full circle, from building businesses, to helping organizations grow, to creating experiences that bring people together.