Carmella Chandler
Use Prevention Specialist

Carmella A. Chandler is an experienced trainer and manager, who currently coordinates tobacco and alcohol programs for the National Association of African Americans for Positive Imagery (NAAAPI). Chandler has been with NAAAPI since 1997. Prior to joining NAAAPI, Chandler was with the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross for 18 years. She joined the Red Cross as an emergency caseworker and rose to the position of manager of volunteer and community education.

As tobacco project director with NAAAPI, Candler managed an IMPACT grant funded by the Office on Smoking and Health of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Under the auspices of that grant, Chandler managed two national campaigns to educate the community on target marketing, supervised the day-to-day activities of the Uptown Coalition for Tobacco Control and Public Health, served as key liaison with NAAAPI affiliates around the nation, and distributed kits on World No Tobacco Day to hundreds of communities. The CDC project produced "Breathe Free," the first culturally competent guide on tobacco smoke pollution (secondhand smoke) for African Americans. Chandler is an expert on the use of target marketing and billboard advertising for tobacco use prevention and coordinated the first regional conference on tobacco and alcohol billboard conference in Baltimore, Maryland, in August 1998. She also managed a city-wide counter marketing billboard project for the Uptown Coalition.

Chandler has presented tobacco use prevention workshops throughout the nation and was one of the trainers selected for the 11th International Conference on Tobacco OR Health in Chicago in 2001. She is a certified trainer on tobacco use prevention for the American Academy of Pediatrics, training physicians, healthcare workers and social service staffs in ways to help clients and patients quit smoking. Chandler has been a trainer and conference planner for The Onyx Group, a marketing and communications company, and was a national trainer for the American Red Cross, with responsibility for training volunteer and paid staff in casework services and disaster preparedness in the five-county chapter region and throughout the country.
Chandler was responsible for deployment of volunteers for national disaster response and managed the coordination of the only welcome center in the country for military troops during Operation Desert Storm.

Chandler is a graduate of Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in sociology and has taken graduate coursework in non-profit management and urban ministry from Eastern College and Westminster Seminary.

Chandler is a member of advisory boards dealing with health care issues .She is the Sunday School superintendent at her church where she also teaches adult Sunday School. She is married to James Chandler, a Philadelphia firefighter. The Chandlers have two children, a married son and a teenage daughter, and live in Northwest Philadelphia with their Zebra Finches.