Dr. Sammons grew up in Wattsburg, Pennsylvania and attended California and State Teachers College in California, Pennsylvania to study Industrial Arts. Upon graduating, he moved to a small town in WV to teach mechanical drawing to high school students.
After serving in the Korean war, he attended Richmond Professional Institute which is now called VCU and received his certificate in Occupational Therapy.
Shortly thereafter he started his OT career by finding employment as the chief director of OT at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and worked there for about 5 years practicing rehabilitation and completing research in prosthetics. During this time he also joined staff at the amputee clinic in Northwestern University, and later received an honorary doctorate in 1983 from WMU to recognize the many contributions he has made to the field of OT.
Dr. Sammons is the creator of the button aid, a self-care aid that we call adaptive equipment in the field, that was and still is used today for self-care dressing tasks. Dr. Sammons created his own company called Button King Inc. after showcasing the button aid at conferences like AOTA and seeing its utility and popularity. This product became mass produced and laid the framework for an entrepreneurial career in assistive technology and research. The company has evolved over the years and is now called Performance Health; a company that catalogues around 2,500 products.
Over the years, Dr. Sammons has won numerous awards, advocated for the OT profession both internationally and domestically, and was recently named one of the top 100 Influential People of Occupational Therapy by AOTA. He also has made numerous charitable donations to VCU and other universities and organizations.
An archive was recently made and can be viewed at the following link:
https://fredsammons.org/about/about-fs
Hosted by:
Alexander Leary Connolly, OTS
Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program
Virginia Commonwealth University
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