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ASH Honors Outgoing Board Chair Doug Blanke and Introduces New Board Chair Carolyn Dresler, MD, MPA
A Tribute to Service and the Subsequent Period of Progress
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 13, 2026 – Motion on Smoking and Well being (ASH) extends our deepest gratitude to Doug Blanke for his three years of service as Chair of the ASH Board of Trustees. Throughout his tenure, ASH led a dramatic change in the way in which the general public well being neighborhood approaches the tobacco epidemic, from a “management” paradigm to a imaginative and prescient with out business tobacco merchandise. Mr. Blanke joined the ASH Board practically 15 years in the past and has been preventing the tobacco epidemic for many years. ASH is happy that Mr. Blanke will stay a Board Trustee and an energetic supporter of ASH’s mission to achieve zero deaths from tobacco.
Mr. Blanke was the founder and govt director, till his retirement, of the Public Well being Legislation Middle (PHLC) on the Mitchell Hamline Faculty of Legislation. PHLC has been the premier supplier of authorized technical help within the tobacco coverage discipline since 2003. PHLC’s collection of conferences over a decade in the past – Eyes on the Prize – was the direct antecedent to ASH’s Undertaking Sundown, the marketing campaign to section out the sale of business tobacco merchandise, and ASH has continued to work intently with PHLC.
As an Assistant Legal professional Normal of Minnesota, Mr. Blanke performed a key position within the historic litigation that resulted within the launch of the interior paperwork of the tobacco trade, and in multi-state initiatives to get rid of smoking in quick meals eating places and forestall tobacco gross sales to minors. Learn extra in his full biography right here.
Immediately, ASH welcomes our incoming Board Chair, Carolyn Dresler, MD, MPA. She is skilled as a thoracic surgical oncologist and pursued using the human rights-based strategy to the tobacco epidemic that ASH embraced practically 15 years in the past. Dr. Dresler was skilled at Memorial Sloan Kettering and the College of Toronto as a thoracic surgical oncologist with medical practices at Washington College and Fox Chase Most cancers Middle. She retired in 2018 because the Affiliate Director for Medical and Well being Sciences for the Workplace of Science on the Middle for Tobacco Merchandise on the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA).
Previous to working on the FDA, Dr. Dresler was the Director for the Arkansas Division of Well being Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program. She was additionally the Head of Unit for Tobacco and Most cancers on the Worldwide Company for Analysis on Most cancers in Lyon, France.
Dr. Dresler was awarded the American Lung Affiliation’s 2022 C. Everett Koop Unsung Hero Award “for her outstanding profession and contributions she made to considerably lowering tobacco use in Colorado, the U.S. and all over the world,” stated the American Lung Affiliation of their assertion. On the time, ASH launched a video that includes international colleagues reflecting on Dr. Dresler’s in depth influence to commemorate the event. Dr. Dresler is retired and continues to spend a lot of her time volunteering for ASH and dealing to advance public well being domestically and in her house state of Colorado.
ASH thanks our total Board of Trustees for supporting this seamless transition.
ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH
Based in 1967, Motion on Smoking and Well being (ASH) is America’s oldest anti-tobacco group, devoted to a world with ZERO tobacco deaths. As a result of tobacco is the main explanation for preventable loss of life worldwide, ASH helps daring options proportionate to the magnitude of the issue.
