Chris Ronzio
Founder and CEO of Trainual
2021 Promise Ball Corporate Honoree

As a type 1 diabetic since age 8, he shares this about his experience with type 1, and JDRF:

I didn’t know what diabetes meant as a kid, but I thought that it meant my life was over. I was diagnosed at a routine visit to the doctors for my weekly allergy shots, when my mom had suspicions about my insatiable thirst and asked them to test me. Shortly after, we rushed to the hospital. I grabbed a Coca-Cola from the pantry on the way out, and remember my mom telling me, “No! You can’t have sugar!” That year, as the reality of my new world settled in, I remember a whole different conversation with my mom. I cried, asking “why did this happen to me,” and she told me that if I didn’t have the strength to handle it, it wouldn’t have.

That set me on a different trajectory. I realized that my life was under my control, and as I turned 9, 10, and into my teenage years, I learned how Type 1 diabetes was an asset to me. It made me take responsibility for my health. It made me become more analytical, always calculating insulin dosages and counting carbs. It spurred my interest in technology, as I become the first teenager in the world to test a new insulin pump. And it connected me with a community of other diabetics, through JDRF’s annual walks and events. Each year as a child, I went door to door collecting donations. As a teenager, I profiled the important work being done to advance diabetes technology on my cable access TV show.

Decades later, diabetes has nearly faded into my subconscious, with sensors that constantly read my glucose and insulin pumps that automatically deliver the right doses to keep my readings constant. This has given me the space to focus on bigger initiatives, like building my company, Trainual into the #1 AZ Central Top Workplace, or competing in IRONMAN races. It’s because of the work that JDRF does that I’ve had the opportunity to live so normally with diabetes, in a way that children just a generation or two ago did not.

I’m proud to be this year’s Corporate Honoree, and can’t wait to spend an evening celebrating the tremendous advancements that this organization has funded with all of you!