I hope you will meet the right individuals to lead you to your end goal. 

So here is my question. with all that being said, How can an individual wholesale a property?

Individuals looking for returns on their personal assets (with or without real estate background) and institutional hard money that a broker loans for an investor or a pool.The latter usually have predetermined products which the loan must conform to (i.e. 65% LTV of the lesser of purchase or appraised value) and are brokered through mortgage lenders to conform to securities regulations.You should be looking for a smaller private lender for your situation.  

His current employer (who is aware of the full situation) is also a landlord so he understands the concerns I might have and spoke very highly of this individual.

I'd love to meet more like-minded individuals in the area as well.  

ok, yeah I could not decide if I wanted to go with the long distant membership , since I'm starting off, or the individual membership.

There's a huge difference between what a lot of contractors charge and the amount of time it actually takes for a single person or pair of individuals to complete a job. 

You want to be putting people into properties who are going to have the ability to qualify for a mortgage to buy the property in the option exercise period.There are clearly lots of logistics that need to be determined based on each individual case, but this is the basic L/O assignment process.

When I'm marketing, I am an individual investor buying properties for myself.  

If they are secured or unsecured, you need to be aware of usury laws, commercial loans are usually exempt but may not be from private individuals. :)