![\"pam-buffington-redmon\"](\"http:\/\/clemsonworld.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/pam-buffington-redmon.jpg\")
When it comes to Pam Buffington Redmon\u2019s passion to control tobacco, it\u2019s personal.\nTwo weeks before her 1985 graduation from Clemson\u2019s School of Nursing, Redmon received a call that no daughter wants to receive. Her father, a longtime smoker, was being rushed to the hospital and would need open heart surgery. He survived, but struggled with heart issues throughout his life.
\nAfter graduating from Clemson, Redmon began work as a critical and coronary care nurse in Greenwood then continued her career as a cardiac rehab specialist and clinical research nurse in Ohio. In many of her cases, she saw her father\u2019s health story \u2014 smoking that led to health struggles \u2014 replicated in the lives of her patients.
\nSo when she decided to enter the next phase of her career, she earned a master\u2019s degree in public health from Emory University and embarked on a mission to impact health by working to control the use of tobacco.
\nRedmon first served as a staff member, then later executive director,
\nof Emory\u2019s Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium, which provided tobacco-control training and technical support to national, state and local organizations and foundations.
\nShe then became executive director of the Global Health Institute\u2013 China Tobacco Control Program, a Gates Foundation initiative at Emory that is developing tobacco control and prevention initiatives, including smoke-free policies and mobile health interventions, in 17 Chinese cities with populations equivalent to U.S. states.
\nShe also serves as administrative director for the Tobacco Centers for Regulatory Science at the Georgia State University School of Public Health. The center focuses on understanding the human and economic factors that contribute to decision-making regarding the use of tobacco products.
\n\u201cTobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the U.S. and around the world, and decreasing tobacco use reduces the health, social, environmental and economic burdens it creates for individuals and communities,\u201d she said.
\nRedmon and her husband, Kevin, a 1985 Clemson computer engineering graduate, are also playing an important role in the life of their alma mater by joining together to fund the Kevin and Pam Redmon Class of 1985 Annual Scholarships. Both first-generation college students themselves, the scholarship will be given to first-generation students in the School of Nursing or College of Engineering and Science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"