Barbara White Melin is a nationally published writer who has used her experience as a former smoker and expertise in communication to develop tobacco control programs and legislative initiatives for the five-state Rocky Mountain Division of the American Cancer Society. In addition to creating the You Can Quit smoking cessation program for the American Cancer Society, Melin was a co-founder of the Colorado Dental Association's Quit the Spit project. She served as a project manager for the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST) and was a member of former Colorado attorney general Gale Norton's Tobacco Settlement Task Force.Melin is a fellow of the Washington D.C. based Advocacy Institute, and a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Southern Colorado with a Bachelor of Arts in mass communications. She lives in Aurora, Colorado with her two dogs and only son, Eric Melin, a college student who doesn't smoke.