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Tyler Byrne: Changing the Way Diabetes Happens

Tyler Byrne is co-founder of Diabetes Happens, a non-profit company. He is a student at Wesleyan University.

What is the name of your company? The name of the company is Diabetes Happens. How did it get started? In 1998, I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. As a healthy, active kid, it was quite a shock, but I was lucky enough to find the Chris Dudley Basketball Camp for Youth with Diabetes in Vernonia, Oregon. Chris Dudley is a diabetic who played in the NBA for 16 years and his foundation runs this camp, providing a place where kids with diabetes don’t have to be alone in their plight for a week out of the year. I attended the camp for 7 years and I’ve been on staff for the past. Simply put, the experiences and friendships that I gained there have totally transformed the way I deal with my disease and motivated me to do something about it. One of the people who I met there back in 1998 is a guy named Mike Farrell- a former college athlete and currently a basketball coach at Lafayette College. When he uttered the words “diabetes happens” one summer, I knew we could use that slogan to have a positive impact on kids with diabetes. This past summer, we finally launched the website and designed some t-shirts featuring our motto. In July, we traveled to Orlando to attend a national conference for Type 1 diabetes, sold some shirts out of a duffel bag and got the word out about our mission. In August, we brought our t-shirts to the Chris Dudley Basketball camp and took orders for almost 200 more. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and we are extremely excited. What are the goals of your company? We want to make living with diabetes and talking about diabetes a more comfortable experience. Our intent is to use our unique outlook on diabetes to raise awareness of the disease and make it a larger part of the public discourse. Ultimately, we can help shape society’s perception of diabetes, bring the cause to the forefront and create change. We are very committed to supporting young diabetics and providing them with unique opportunities. Right now, all profits from the sale of our merchandise are used to sponsor a boy or girl with Type 1 diabetes to attend the Chris Dudley Basketball Camp. A shameless plug: our t-shirts (and NEW totebags!) look pretty cool and are great for all occasions: wear them to work, to work out, to class, or to the bar. I am lucky to have some great friends here at Wesleyan University who have supported the cause and are rocking the shirts around campus, exposing other college students to the issue. This itself is a great example of what we are trying to do: make diabetes more accessible to new audiences. Where do you see yourself in the next five years? I see myself running Diabetes Happens—working with our many collaborators (Nike, Apple, Google, American Apparel, among others) to raise funds for a cure, sponsor camps and programs for diabetics, and change the way people look at diabetes. Besides that, maybe law school, and definitely working in the entertainment industry. Can’t a diabetic dream? What motivates you? Diabetes happened to me, it happened to my business partner Mike Farrell, and it happens to 30,000 more people in this country every year. I am motivated by these kids, teenagers and young adults that get diabetes and have no idea what to do or think. Through our website and our merchandise, we want them to know that there are other people who have gone through the same things and the disease doesn’t prevent them from doing anything. Like our slogan says—diabetes happens—so we have to play the cards that we are dealt and make the best of it. What is a typical work day like? We just launched an online store, so fortunately most of my work can be done on the computer. A lot of what we do is networking and communicating with other likeminded business and individuals—Mike and I are constantly in touch with other non-profits, bloggers and of course diabetics, their families and friends. How do you achieve the balance between school and work? It is definitely not easy to run a non-profit business as a college student, and my co-founder being a college coach. We are doing our best to stay in touch with the Diabetes Happens community that is forming and maintain great relationships with our customers and partners. Luckily, I have great parents who are running the world headquarters of Diabetes Happens, located at my house in New Jersey. I also owe a lot to my non-diabetic-but-still-badass brother, Conor Byrne, who works very closely with Mike and I in the creative and design processes.

Check out the website at http://www.diabeteshappens.com/

Tyler Byrne can be contacted at tyler@diabeteshappens.com