Leadership Team
Robb Milheim, Retired Special Forces
Senior Instructor / Curriculum Developer
Robb Milheim brings over 30 years of combined military and federal service to Phoenix Canyon.
He spent 20 years in the U.S. Army, split between 75th Ranger Regiment and Special Forces, where he trained U.S. and foreign soldiers as well as foreign national police officers around the globe. During that time, Robb also served as an instructor at the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS) for three years, leading and running the Special Forces Assessment & Selection (SFAS) course — the gateway for America’s most elite soldiers. His work in SFAS was featured in the Discovery Channel documentary Two Weeks in Hell, offering the public a rare look into the rigor of Special Forces selection.
After retiring from active duty, Robb continued his service as a federal civilian for more than a decade, working with both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. In those roles, he specialized in industrial, personnel, and information security programs — helping to safeguard missions, people, and sensitive information across the Department of Defense.
At Phoenix Canyon, Robb combines his Special Forces discipline, his global training experience, and his deep federal expertise to design and deliver courses that are practical, engaging, and mission-focused.
Melinda Milheim, JD
Senior Instructor / Curriculum Developer
Melinda Milheim brings a rare blend of legal training, acquisition expertise, and award-winning instruction to Phoenix Canyon. Across her career, Melinda has worked every side of the federal contracting equation — military, government, contractor, and consultant — giving her a perspective in the classroom that few instructors can match.
After eight years in the U.S. Army Reserves, spent mainly as a Finance Specialist and Army Sailor (plus a brief duty assignment in a Tier One Chinook helicopter unit — just to keep things interesting), Melinda earned her law degree and built a graduate-level business foundation through her MBA studies. Then, working for the U.S. Navy and Department of Health and Human Services / Indian Health Service, she worked on some of the government’s most complex, high-dollar contracts (more than $7.7 billion in collective value) — everything from construction, engineering, R&D, missile, major weapon, IT, and fighter jet contracts — to OTAs and Alpha Contracts. She served on the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler IPTs, and as an AOR for the cloud computing OTA bringing both classified and unclassified data into cloud storage solutions. Yet, her greatest pride comes from the awards she won for teaching Negotiation Mastery to more than 150 Navy personnel (it was there that she discovered her passion for teaching).
Along the way she has had some other grand career adventures as well, including working at one of the largest consulting firms in the nation (where she specialized in government construction contract audits and compliance work), several stints working for government contractors, teaching Defense Acquisition University (DAU – now known as WarU) courses (law, acquisition, program management, and leadership series) to more than 1,000 students over the years, and now co-founding Phoenix Canyon, the company that brings Melinda’s award-winning teaching style and rigorous curriculum development to federal personnel and government contractors— giving them the tools to navigate the ever-changing GovCon environment.
At Phoenix Canyon, Melinda combines her legal, government contracting, and business background with her passion for making complex topics clear, practical, and energizing — ensuring that every course delivers engaging, memorable content that immediately makes you better at your job.
Outside of Phoenix Canyon, Melinda leads Christopher Zebra International — a separate venture focused on behavioral skills, negotiation, and leadership development for individual professionals — and is the author of the forthcoming book The Powder Keg: The Science & Strategy for Successful Negotiations.