Founder - William S. Robinson, MA

William S. Robinson is a native of Manhasset, New York.  He relocated to South Carolina in July 1988, and lived in Columbia, Camden and Ladson.  He returned to Columbia in June 2005, remained there until July 2007, when he relocated to Durham, NC.  Mr. Robinson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a concentration in International Relations from the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz.  He earned a Master of Arts degree in African and African American Studies with a minor in Political Science from SUNY at Albany, where he graduated magna cum laude.  In 1984, Mr. Robinson was inducted into Pi Sigma Alpha, the Political Science National Honor Society.  Mr. Robinson has nearly 40 years of administrative and program experience in a variety of community-based, higher education and health-related environments in New York, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

He has served on both the SC Governor’s Task Forces for Substance Abuse and Teenage Pregnancy Prevention..  He has served on the Executive, and Finance Committees and Board of Directors of the Diabetes Initiative of South Carolina.  He chaired the Initiative’s Task Force to Increase Minority CDEs (certified diabetes educators) for two years.  Mr. Robinson served on the initial board of the SC Coalition to Promote Physical Activity and was the first person to serve as its President-Elect, President and Past President from April 2001 to April 2004.  He also served as an Advisory Committee member that produced the first Report on the Impact of Obesity in South Carolina.  In 2005, Mr. Robinson chaired the SC Department of Education’s Wellness Committee that reviewed and selected books and materials from publishers that were used in SC schools, grades 9-12.

Mr. Robinson served as Project Manager for SC Project ASSIST (American Stop Smoking Intervention Study), Co-Chair of the Multi-cultural Subcommittee of National ASSIST and is a founding member of the SC African American HIV/AIDS Council, Diabetes Today Advisory Council and the SC African American Tobacco Control Network.  Mr. Robinson was co-author of a National Cancer Institute training module, From Sensitivity to Commitment, which featured strategies, activities and plans on how to effectively engage diverse communities in tobacco control.  Mr. Robinson has trained persons from more than 40 different states on the module.  Mr. Robinson has co- facilitated the Diverse Cultures course for the Centers for Disease Control/University of North Carolina Summer Tobacco Institute in New Mexico and Georgia.  In 2000, he joined a number of African American tobacco control advocates from around the country to create the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network where he served as Chair of the Executive Council for its first four years, as a founding “Elder”, and as Executive Director between August 2006 and June 2011.

Mr. Robinson operates his own consultant company, William S. Robinson & Associates, which focuses on capacity building, empowerment, infrastructure development and addressing health issues in African-American communities.  From September 1999 - August 2002, Mr. Robinson served as the South Carolina state coordinator for NBLIC (National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer) and developed the B.A.P. Caps (Brothers Against Prostate Cancer Awareness Program), a unique prostate education program run through barber shops.   In September 1998, Mr. Robinson was hired by the Medical University of South Carolina to head Partners in Wellness, a diabetes and hypertension collaboration with the six Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs) in SC.  In the summer of 2003, Mr. Robinson was appointed Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy at MUSC.  Mr. Robinson was also an Adjunct Instructor at Claflin University in 2004.  From April 2005 – December 2006 Mr. Robinson headed a clinical research unit at SC State University as a part of their Project EXPORT collaboration.  Mr. Robinson served as an Adjunct Instructor in the Dept of Nursing at NC Central University from August 2007 to May 2009.  He will rejoin the NCCU Nursing Department in January 2012.