Vicki Huntington has been involved with tobacco prevention and control for over 26 years.  She started with the movement in 1997 at the American Lung Association of Gulfcoast Florida and has been the Section Chief/State Program Manager for the Wisconsin Commercial Tobacco Prevention and Treatment Program since 2007 at the Department of Health Services.  Prior to that, she had been the Policy Analyst, Youth Programs Coordinator and Disparities Coordinator from 2001 to 2007.  Vicki has a vast array of experience from strategic planning, building and maintaining relationships with local, state and national partners on collaborations from policy and program development across the comprehensive approach to program implementation.  Through this public health policy work, Vicki has been involved with WI passing and implementing a statewide smoke free air law and two major tax increases that have resulted in youth and adult smoking rates to drop significantly.  Vicki is very passionate about addressing the tobacco-related disparities that exist because of the tobacco industry’s historical targeting of marginalized communities and looks for opportunities of research, pilot projects, and promising approaches to address those tobacco-related disparities.

Besides Vicki’s commitment to public health, she has a degree in Arts Management, worked in theatre management for 12 years and has a passion for the arts being an integral part of a community.  Vicki looks for any opportunity to combine the arts and public health which might be through creative development of paid media campaigns as well as youth and young adult educational advocacy engagement.

Vicki enjoys life in the country with her husband, two dogs and cat while sharing their property with wildlife such as deer, turkeys, bobcats, coyotes, fox, opossums, raccoons, and a wide variety of birds.  She also enjoys the arts, sporting events, and nature activities with her daughter and two bonus sons as well as travel to visit them.  Her favorite travel locations are Alaska and Norway for the mountains, northern lights, and dog sled racing.

Neil Charvat is the Director of the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program at the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services. He started in the Program working in community programs and health equity in 2008. Neil became the Program Director in 2014. He coordinates the North Dakota Comprehensive Tobacco Prevention and Control Program State Plan. Neil also works closely with Tobacco Prevention and Control Program staff to assist in the development and implementation of tobacco treatment programs, community engagement, and health equity in populations disparately affected by tobacco usage.

Aubri Devashrayee is the Media Coordinator for the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program (TPCP) at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. She has worked in substance use prevention marketing and media for 3 years and brings experience in copywriting, technical writing, design, and campaign management. They currently manage TPCP’s Way to Quit, Déjelo Ya, See Through the Vape, and Vea a Través del Vapeo campaigns. She has a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University and enjoys reading and art in their free time.

Pronouns: she/they

Ron Davis has been with the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Tobacco Free Florida for 23 years.  He currenlty serves as the State and Community Interventions Tobacco Policy Section Manager. Ron supervises staff who work with the community-based tobacco intervention providers in each of the tobacco policy focus areas in all 67 counties in Florida. He has presented at 9 national tobacco control conferences and two international tobacco conferences.  He has been an invited presenter for state tobacco control program conferences in three states. Mr. Davis coordinates tobacco control activities, advocacy initiatives and policy work at the state level and provides technical assistance and training to county level tobacco staff statewide.

Christina Thill is the State Policy Planner with the Minnesota Department of Health’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program and oversees policy initiatives in collaboration with state and local partners. Christina has twenty-eight years of experience in state and local policy and program development. She provides expertise with the development and implementation of statewide initiatives including Tobacco 21, smoke-free housing, and behavioral health. She is working collaboratively with partners to develop Minnesota’s state strategic plan.

Christina is responsible for the oversight of the CDC grant requirements and develops agency policy proposals including the recently funded Youth E-cigarette Prevention and Cessation Initiative. She has extensive expertise in developing new state grant programs, leading the development of competitive RFP’s, technical assistance and training, and grant management.

In her free time, Christina enjoys running, cross-fit training, photography, traveling, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes and buildings and, spending time with family.

Christina Ortega-Peluso is a public health professional with 20 years of experience in program evaluation and research in topic areas including Tobacco, HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ+ health, and patient safety. She is currently an Evaluation Specialist with the NYSDOH Bureau of Chronic Disease Evaluation and Research where she works on local and statewide evaluation activities for the Tobacco Control Program. Christina is a member of the Division of Chronic Disease Prevention’s Racial Justice Workgroup. She has developed and facilitated Bureau-level trainings on racial justice, participated in NACDD GEAR Group sessions focused on the intersection of data and race, and she promotes the translation of best practices to advance health equity and racial justice at the Bureau and Division levels. Christina earned her bachelor’s degree in Human Biology and her master’s degree in Public Health from the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is an advocate for ethical data stewardship and believes that health equity is the future of Public Health.

Daniel Saggese has been the Director of Marketing for the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth for nearly two decades and has led the establishment of one of the premier youth engagement programs in the country.  He is also responsible for numerous multi-media prevention campaigns which have helped drive down the tobacco use rate among youth in Virginia by more than half.  Daniel is an M.B.A. recipient from Robert Morris University and a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Barbara Fickel has worked in public health in the Pennsylvania Department of Health since 2002. She began her career in the Bureau of Family Health, where she administered programs serving children with special health care needs and was then promoted to Program Administrator for various maternal and child health initiatives. Ms. Fickel then transferred to the Department’s Bureau of Health Promotion and Risk Reduction, first with the Breast and Cervical Cancer Section then leading the Health Literacy Section. She moved to the Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control in 2009 where she served as the Section Chief for Statewide Programs, overseeing the PA Free Quitline, Tobacco Retail Enforcement, Clean Indoor Air, Media and Evaluation. Ms. Fickel was promoted to Director of the Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control in 2019. In this position, Ms. Fickel oversees the implementation of tobacco prevention and control programs that provide services across Pennsylvania and promote community-based and culturally competent service systems. She develops and implements short and long-range plans, goals and objectives consistent with the Department’s mission and federal guidance and recommends policy and program standards regarding all aspects of the Division. She serves as the Principal Investigator for federal grants including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Statewide Tobacco Control Program and Tobacco Cessation and Food and Drug Administration Tobacco Retail Compliance Program. She graduated from the University of Scranton with a B.S. in Psychology.

Rachel is the Senior Health Communication Specialist with the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program (MTCP) at the Department of Public Health.

With over 25 years of experience in public health and, Rachel has worked on a range of projects to improve internal and external programmatic communications and to educate the public on important public health issues. In addition to her work in MA, Rachel’s experience includes working at small organizations focusing on medical technology and program planning and evaluation; small and large public relations agencies conducting national social marketing campaigns; and for the state health department in Minnesota on projects ranging from grantee newsletters to managing MDH’s Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP).

Rachel holds a BA in Spanish and International Studies from Washington University in St. Louis and an MPH from the University of Maryland, College Park. She enjoys visiting her hometown of Tucson, Arizona when it is cold in Massachusetts. In her spare time, Rachel enjoys baking and watching her two children play a lot of soccer.

Robert Ostbye has worked for the Bureau of Tobacco Free Florida at the Florida Department of Health for ten years; originally as local tobacco prevention program manager for a county health department before transitioning to a state-level role in 2017. He currently serves as a statewide policy manager, responsible for coordinating policy, systems, and environmental change interventions at the state and local level. In this role, Robert develops and manages policy initiatives for community-based tobacco prevention programs in each of our 67 counties.

Under his leadership, TFF’s community-based programs are gaining traction in the effort to establish comprehensive tobacco free school policies across the state. He also oversees Florida’s Online Tobacco Education Courses for students, educators, and nurses; provided through the School Board of Palm Beach County’s Tobacco Prevention Program. Robert is particularly passionate about establishing collaborative partnerships across agencies, sectors, and state lines to advance key tobacco prevention objectives.

Liz Johnson is the Director of the Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Program at the Tennessee Department of Health Services, serving in this capacity since October 2018. Liz possesses a broad set of skills in program management, community engagement, and leadership across the complete spectrum of stakeholders, including local, state, and national partners. Liz oversees all commercial tobacco and electronic vapor product prevention and cessation activities for youth and adults. Liz is a team player who is well-versed in building consensus around a common set of public health priorities and strategies. As tobacco use continues to be the leading cause of disease-related death in Tennessee, her current focus is to reduce commercial tobacco use among communities most disproportionately impacted and address the alarming rise in vape use among Tennessee youth.

Prior to this role, Liz was the Executive Director of the Sumner County Anti-Drug Coalition, served as the Program Coordinator for the Regional Intervention Program in Franklin, Tennessee, and taught elementary school for four years in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Liz obtained a Bachelor of Science in Education from Middle Tennessee State University and a Master of Public Health from Walden University.

In her free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, and spending time with her husband, twin daughters, and boxer, Rudy.

Keri Schneider has worked in commercial tobacco prevention and control for nearly 20 years. She is the Tobacco Prevention and Treatment Unit Supervisor for the Wisconsin Department Health Services, Commercial Tobacco Prevention and Treatment Program (CTPTP). Prior to this, she was the Tobacco Treatment Coordinator for CTPTP the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Treatment Program. Keri provides leadership to the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Treatment Unit and for all the tobacco treatment programs through the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, American Lung Association, Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation, and collaborating community and state partners. Keri is a participant of the 2024 Leadership and Sustainability School and served a two-year term (2022-2024) as the Midwestern Region Co-Representative, and Co-lead for the Regional Representatives Workgroup on the Executive Committee for the Tobacco Control Network (TCN). Previously, she worked for the American Lung Association as the Manager, Health Promotions.

Sierra Phelps is the Tobacco Program Director with the South Dakota Department of Health. In this role, she oversees the tobacco control program, including the SD QuitLine, community and school outreach, counter-marketing, prevention programs, surveillance and evaluation. She provides oversight for all tobacco control program development, strategic planning, grant writing, management, budget preparation, staff supervision, outreach to partners and policy development. Sierra has a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice and has been in tobacco control since 2020.

In her free time, Sierra enjoys spending time with family and all her animals, studying true crime, camping and rescuing (all) animals.

Heidi Glesmann currently serves as the Commercial Tobacco Prevention Manager, one of two co-managers for the Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program in Washington State. In her role, she oversees all commercial tobacco related prevention and cessation efforts for individuals of all ages, implemented by her incredible staff and community partners. She has led budget and strategic planning efforts when the program has received over $10 million dollars in new tobacco funding in 3 years, and supported the revival of a statewide tobacco coalition, Washington Breathes. She also has the unique opportunity to work with her co-manager to ensure efforts in the programs youth cannabis prevention are integrated with youth commercial tobacco prevention efforts.

Heidi has been working in tobacco prevention since 2019 and joined Washington Department of Health in 2021 as the Health Equity and Social Justice Coordinator, before stepping into her current role. She has a background in public health and healthcare, receiving her MPH in Public Health and Administrative Policy at the UMN Twin Cities and a B.S. in Biology of Global Health at the University of St. Thomas (Go Tommies!). Her previous work experience includes two health systems (Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, MN and Trinity Health in Minot, ND) and local public health and substance prevention in Minot, North Dakota.

In her free time, she is an avid reader and her favorite genre is romance. You can find her on a Saturday at the library reading, or at home using her planner or bullet journal, surrounded by her stationary collection. She loves cuddling with her orange kitty (Ymir) and her yellow lab (Odin), or watching the latest episode of The Last of Us with her spouse. But most importantly, Heidi is a Buffalo Bills fan, born and raised (Go Bills!).

Sarah Wylie has worked in tobacco prevention and policy for more than a decade, in positions across multiple states and sectors. She currently serves as Manager for the Oregon Tobacco Retail License Program with the Oregon Health Authority – Public Health Division. In her role, Sarah leads development and implementation of a new regulatory program and provides oversight for Oregon’s National Tobacco Control Program grant activities. Sarah has also worked as tobacco communications and policy lead at the Oregon Health Authority, in program evaluation at RTI International, and as the community and policy programs specialist at the Vermont Department of Health.

Sarah is a graduate of the University of Washington Community-Oriented Public Health Practice Program and Carleton College. When she’s not dreaming up new program structures and connections, Sarah enjoys soccer, gardening, knitting, and visibly mending her family’s best-loved garments.