Debbie Smith

Debbie Smith, MM is the founder and CEO of AHA! Movement, a non-profit organization created in memory of her son, college student Matt Carrington. Matt died on February 2, 2005, after enduring a horrific water hazing pledging at a fraternity in Chico, California. Since then, Smith has had one primary mission in life: to bring awareness to the often tortuous and sometimes fatal practice of hazing. To this end, she has participated in a variety of television documentaries and talk shows; local and national news and radio programs, as well as being interviewed for newspaper and magazine articles. Smith was also a key player in the plea bargain deal for the seven young men charged with killing her son, which resulted in the first ever felony conviction for hazing in the United States.