Meet Our Leaders

BIO of Pamela Parker 

Pamela is a corporate communications, marketing, and events management professional with consulting and direct-hire senior project management and senior marketing analysis experience in the areas of government, health, and the high-tech industry. She has served as a community-based special projects coordinator, consultant, and Chief of Staff to Texas state-elected officials; as the Coordinator for the Texas Legislative Black Caucus; and as a registered lobbyist for the Texas/American Federation of Teachers, where she helped the lobby team and other leaders advocate for the successful passage of the Safe Schools Act in 1995—a Zero-Tolerance policy allowing the removal of disruptive students in the classroom and placement in alternative education sites, increased educator pay, and improved teacher retirement benefits in Texas.

As Chief of Staff to the late State Representative Fred Blair of Dallas and former Chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, Pamela assisted Representative Blair with writing and filing the Articles of Incorporation to officially create the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. Additionally, as Chief of Staff she assisted the late Representative Blair with the successful implementation of HB 2484 during the 1989 – 71st Regular Session of the Texas Legislature that created the Council on Minority Health Affairs—Texas’ first state-legislated initiative to begin to address minority health disparities.

Pamela was later appointed to serve as the Coordinator of the Texas Council on Minority Health Affairs, where she managed this health and human services interagency council, composed of elected officials and executives from five state agencies, who were charged to focus on health inequities in Texas. Pamela coordinated statewide public hearings and a six-city statewide tour in Texas for the Council to visit the homes of the underserved and look at their living conditions face-to-face to understand the plight of healthcare and social services in Texas and begin to close the gap on health inequities. It was discovered that some homes in El Paso did not have running water. As a result of the Council on Minority Health Affairs’ findings and input from people in these underserved populations, the Council recommended a legislative bill to establish the Office of Minority Health in Texas.

Pamela assisted the late Representative Fred Blair in 1991 with that legislation, HB 2441 and HB 94, to create the Office of Minority Health. Both bills died in Senate and House committees. Pamela found a way to add this legislation as an amendment to HB 7 (pages 593 to 596), helping the late State Representative Fred Blair finally successfully pass a law to create the Office of Minority Health in the Texas Department of Health in 1991. After Representative Blair left the legislature to run for a Senate seat, Pamela went on to serve as Chief of Staff to State Representative Helen Giddings of Desoto. Pamela assisted Representative Giddings with her legislative agenda as a new freshman legislator in the Texas House of Representatives. As Chief of Staff, Pamela shared the need for funding of the Office of Minority Health with Representative Giddings. As a result, Representative Giddings filed HB 2734 which died in committee but funding was successfully implemented through an amendment in the Texas Appropriations Bill, supplying the initial revenue to officially ignite the Office of Minority Health that was previously established by the late State Representative Fred Blair. Pamela continues to serve as a communications, marketing, legislative, and events consultant for elected officials on an as-needed basis.

From an event management perspective, Pamela has managed projects, proprietary and third-party events, and festivals for elected officials, the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, Dell, IBM, nonprofits, high-tech industry, fitness and community wellness entities, and governmental agencies. She received eight (8) recognition awards from Dell as a Senior Marketing Analyst on their corporate events team, and she served as a Senior Project Manager of Events at IBM. Pamela has also worked at the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), where she was on a planning team to manage the annual statewide TWC Annual Forum and the TWC Annual Conference. In 2023, Pamela was selected to be one of five national scholarship award winners, where she represented the Texas Lone Star Chapter of State Government and Meeting Professionals (SGMP) at their SGMP National Education Conference in Minnesota.

Aside from Pamela’s project management, events, and legislative contributions, as a former Miss Black Austin, Miss East Austin, and Galaxy International pageant winner, she is no stranger to community and health and wellness promotion and advocacy. As a faith and fitness coach, certified personal trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), and a group fitness instructor with the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA), she is passionate about helping youth, adults, and seniors live well.

Pamela has served on the School Health Advisory Committee at Southwest Key/East Austin College Prep in Austin. Additionally, she has spoken about exercise, health, mental health, and workplace wellness at various forums and to diverse audiences, including speaking at the state capitol, at the Health and Human Service Commission, at the African American Family Support Conference, before the Executive Women in Texas Government, at churches, at schools, and in the community. She received an “Excellence in Wellness” award from the Rebecca Baines Johnson (RBJ) Residential Center—a senior facility established by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. She previously founded an organization called Born Again Bodies, which received a 2016 “Humanitarian of the Year” recognition by recommendation from the City of Austin Health and Human Services Commission at the Urban Health Expo for providing low-and-discounted health and exercise programs to underserved youth, adults, and seniors in the Austin area.

As a latch-key kid, raised by her father who raised six children on his own due to her mother’s mental health challenges, Pamela is passionate about helping people live healthy, whole, and at peace in the mind, body, and Spirit. Pamela is elated to be a part of a dynamic team of capable and equipped individuals who are dedicated to changing the dynamics of health equity, where she serves as the Director of Communications and Special Events at the Black Men’s Health Clinic®.