Decade of Discovery – Management Team

Decade of Discovery Management Team

The Decade of Discovery Management Team will prepare an operational business plan, create annual action plans, monitor progress toward major milestones, and provide operational leadership and management to the Decade of Discovery programs.

David D. Etzwiler

David Etzwiler is executive director of the Decade of Discovery: A Minnesota Partnership to Conquer Diabetes. Recognized by his peers as a leader in business, government and philanthropy, Mr. Etzwiler was most recently vice president of community affairs and executive director of the Medtronic Foundation. At Medtronic, Etzwiler led the Foundation through a nearly five-fold annual operating increase and established it as a global leader in patient-centered care. He developed and led the company’s first corporate citizenship vision, strategy, and structure, and garnered Medtronic’s first ranking on Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s Top 100 list. Etzwiler also headed Medtronic’s government affairs efforts in Minnesota, a role in which he and his team secured state and local government approvals and funding to develop the company’s two largest facilities in the world.

With an education capped by a master’s in public policy and J.D., Etzwiler’s counsel has been sought as a professional and as a board member. Prior to Medtronic, Etzwiler led state-wide reform efforts in domestic violence, served as interim executive director of a human service and mental health center, and was a member of the executive team of The Family Partnership, an organization providing counseling, family support and education, and advocacy services to children and families. Etzwiler has served on numerous boards including the National Urban Fellows, the Sexual Violence Center, the Minnesota Private Colleges Council, and the Children’s Theatre Company. He is a member of the Council on Foundation’s board of directors, chairs its Global Committee, co-chairs the 2012 Task Force on the Future of Corporate Philanthropy, and is the immediate past chair of the Council’s Corporate Committee.

Steven Smith, M.D.

Dr. Steven Smith is the Medical Director for Patient Education at the Mayo Clinic and past Chair of the Diabetes Core Group: Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Nutrition, and Metabolism. He is an active researcher in the Mayo Clinic’s Division of Health Care Policy & Research as well as the Knowledge Encounter Research program. His interests include the effective translation of diabetes care, self management support, decision support tools, patient reported outcomes, health services, and health economic initiatives. His major focus of research has been health systems, telemedicine strategies in communication across the continuum of patient care, relationships between patient/generalists/specialists, information modeling, and point of care patient self management support. At a national level; he has been on the advisory council for the Diabetes Quality Improvement Project, Co-Chair of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services project Doctors Office Quality, past chair of the American Diabetes Association Council on Clinical Endocrinology, Health Care Delivery, and Public Health, as well as a member of the Publication Policy, Research Policy, and Finance Committee(s), National Leadership Council and National Board of Directors for the American Diabetes Association.

Elizabeth Seaquist, M.D.

Elizabeth Seaquist, M.D. is a professor in the Department of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Seaquist is also the director of The Center for Diabetes Research. She is currently heading projects to learn how the brain adapts to diabetes and recurrent hypoglycemia with the long-term goal of developing new therapies for the disease.