alumni today
HEALTH
Sharing Life
With Diabetes
COURTESY OF BRANDY BARNES ’ 97
to who had been
through this before
me.”
Barnes, who
also earned her
master’s degree in
When Brandy Carver social work from
Barnes ’ 97 was diagnosed UNC in 2001, got
with Type 1 diabetes at age to see the situa-
15, she didn’t have peers to tion from another
turn to for support, a situa- angle. She was
tion that persisted as she got selling diabetes
Brandy Barnes ’ 97, right, is founder and executive direc-
tor and Laura Ely ’07 is assistant director of the nonprofit Diabetes Sisters, supporting women with diabetes.
older. medicines and
“I was the only person in teaching people
my high school,” she says. “There was nobody about treatment, but she was aware that even
for me to talk to. When I was pregnant, I had the marketing was contributing to the stereo-to take insulin for two, and I was gaining type of a diabetic as overweight and lazy. “The
weight. By the end, I was taking triple my biggest myth,” Barnes says, “is the idea that we
normal dose. You are at home managing by bring diabetes on ourselves, that by taking bet-yourself, and I just wanted somebody to talk ter care of ourselves we could have prevented
it. I want to dispel these myths.”
In 2007, Barnes came up with a plan and
ran it by Dr. John Buse at the UNC Diabetes
Care Center. With the encouragement of Buse,
who was the 2008 president of the medicine
and science section of the American Diabetes
Association, Barnes began to build a Web site,
Diabetes Sisters. Her goal was a place where
women with diabetes could support each other
in keeping an optimistic, active lifestyle. Barnes
designed plenty of space for blogs and information exchange. Another alumna, Laura Ely
’07, who has had diabetes for most of her life,
joined as assistant director of the nonprofit.
“Our goal is to show that you can shoot
for high goals,” Barnes says. “For a person with
diabetes, it may take a little bit more work,
but you can still do it. Join us at
www.diabetessisters.org.”
— Susan Simone
SERVICE
Shopping to Save
Neil Woodcock ’ 66 understands the idea
behind the old adage “waste not, want not”
and puts it into practice for Tar Heel taxpayers.
It’s Woodcock’s job, as the director of law
enforcement support services for the N.C.
Department of Crime Control and Public
Safety, to match the needs of state and local
law enforcement agencies to excess federal
property. So when Arlington National
Cemetery retired some horses used to pull
funeral caissons, Woodcock snapped them up.
Now the N.C. Highway Patrol is putting the
horses to work.
From horses to computers to body armor
designed for SWAT-level building entries,
Woodcock is the ultimate penny-pincher. Like
a grocery shopper armed with coupons, his
objective is to bring home the goods while
saving taxpayers as much as possible. In the past
14 years, his agency has racked up $122 million worth of free equipment.
sion for a while, this Woodcock worked
son of a sawmill with counter-drug
owner didn’t neces- operations. After help-sarily aspire to gov- ing to develop the
ernment work. “I federal excess-proper-worked in the ty program, he moved
sawmill from the to the U.S.
time I was 13, and I Department of Justice
was sure that I didn’t as a liaison officer.
want to do that.” Retired as a
Born in the colonel after 28 years
nation’s capital while of active duty,
his father was Woodcock moved his
employed at the family back to North
As director of law enforcement support services for North
Navy’s shipyard, he Carolina, Neil Woodcock ’ 66 might best be described as a Carolina. When he’s
moved with his fam- not visiting his three
bargain shopper — finding things the federal government no
longer needs and getting them to local agencies.
ily to the Pender grandchildren, he
County town of Atkinson when he was 2. works to acquire cast-off property from the
Woodcock helped pay for his education by feds to repurpose for the state. His program is
joining ROTC at UNC. credited as one of the best in the nation.
He enlisted in the Air Force, married, “There are about 600 agencies [in the
served four years of military service, then got state], and we’ve given stuff to about 400 of
out and went into business. Woodcock also them,” Woodcock says. “It allows law enforce-joined the National Guard, which beckoned ment agencies to spend money on other
him to return to duty full time. Eventually his things.”
career brought him to the Pentagon, where
