2026 Trailblazer Alumna Award
The Mercy High School Alumnae Association is proud to announce the recipient of the 2026 Trailblazer Alumna Award, Kelly Redmond '12. Based on the Mercy Core Values of Compelled by Mercy, Educational Courage, Inspired by Faith, Principled Leadership and A Voice For Dignity and Respect, the Trailblazer Alumna Award is designed to honor an alumna who graduated within the years 2006 - 2021 and is commended for her incredible efforts to make a difference early in her career. Congratulations, Kelly!
Mercy President Dr. Cheryl Delaney Kreger '66 will present her award during Tea for Tuition on Sunday, April 26, 2026. We invite you to join us! Learn more here.
Kelly Redmond '12
Kelly Redmond ’12 currently serves as a founder and co-CEO of Oleo. Oleo is a public benefit corporation committed to accelerating the global energy transition by providing carbon-negative oil feedstocks for advanced fuel production. Kelly’s work focuses on enabling significant emissions reductions in hard-to-decarbonize heavy transport sectors. The company is currently supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Kelly is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where she earned a B.S. in Environmental Engineering. During her time at West Point, she contributed to research published in Applied Geography titled “Household Vulnerability Mapping in Africa’s Rift Valley,” and designed a portable moisture harvester capable of providing water for soldiers in arid environments. These experiences sparked her interest in applying engineering to global environmental challenges and led her to commission as an environmental science and engineering officer in the U.S. Army.
Over five years of active-duty service, Kelly held multiple leadership roles across the United States and abroad. In her first assignment, she led the design and management of environmental health programs protecting 4,000 soldiers from food, water, and vector-borne diseases. She later served as the executive officer of a medical company, overseeing evacuation and treatment operations for thousands of soldiers. In South Korea, she was the second-in-command of a forward-deployed medical detachment, providing preventive medicine and public health support to over 10,000 individuals. She concluded her military service as Deputy Chief of Environmental Health and Engineering for Public Health Command–Pacific, overseeing programs across four U.S. states and 36 nations.
Following her time in the Army, Kelly earned an M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University, where she focused on developing scalable solutions to climate and sustainability challenges. As a recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship, she studied Indonesian and conducted ethnographic research with palm oil smallholder farmers. This work informed her master’s thesis on developing a biomanufacturing platform to convert biomass waste into carbon-negative oil alternatives. Her research focused on creating a process to help meet the growing global demand for seed oils without expanding arable land use, and ultimately became the foundation for her company, Oleo.
Outside of her professional work, Kelly enjoys traveling and has visited over 60 countries, an experience that continues to shape her global perspective on sustainability and development. She credits Mercy with providing a strong educational foundation and instilling in her the importance of service to others, a value that continues to guide her work today.