Montana leader to receive Diabetes Educator of the Year Award
Marci Butcher, RD, LN, CDE
Marci Butcher, RD, LN, CDE, will receive this year’s Diabetes Educator of the Year Award for her decades of service to educators and clients across Montana and other western states.
Butcher has for more than 16 years served as the Quality Diabetes Education Initiative Coordinator for the Montana Diabetes Prevention & Control Program. She coordinates a self-study/peer-mentoring program through a program that helps diabetes educators increase their skills in a way that meets the needs of both educators and clients.
Since the start of the program in 1999, more than 150 health professionals have taken part, and the number of certified diabetes educators (CDEs) in the state has almost doubled, with most of them coming from this program. More than half of those who’ve participated serve in rural or frontier communities.
“I’m so honored, but I truly view it as a team award because we have such amazing partnerships here in Montana,” she said. “There are few of us, so we have to work together in order to get things done, and we’ve been able to accomplish a lot because we have such amazing diabetes educators here in Montana. And we have he support and promotion of so many others.”
Butcher serves on the committee that will revise the National Standards for Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support.
She also leads Montana Kids with Diabetes School Collaborative, which works on issues related to diabetes care in the school setting, and also works as a diabetes education consultant for Mountain-Pacific Quality Health of Montana, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii.
Butcher founded the AADE Diabetes Prevention Community of Interest in 2014 and continues to co-lead the group. She also led the Public Health COI in 2010-11 and was co-leader 2012-14. In 2015, she was part of the AADE Annual Meeting Planning Committee.
The Montana native received a bachelor’s of arts in Food/Nutrition and Biology from Concordia College in Minnesota, and graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Early in her career, she worked as a diabetes educator in one of the largest diabetes programs in Montana, developed a diabetes education program in a very small, frontier Montana community, and also served in a tribal community as a diabetes educator.
Johnson & Johnson sponsors the Diabetes Educator of the Year Award.
