Andrew Mika gazes down to examine his tailored white dress shirt. \u201cSee look at that\u2014there\u2019s a blood stain!\u201d<\/p>\n
These words, unexpected in the upscale Brooklyn Diner in Midtown Manhattan, have become routine to Mika.<\/p>\n
He looks up from his shirt. \u201cI had to get it dry-cleaned the other week. I was really, really pissed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDrew\u201d Mika is 27 years old, a tri-state native, workout enthusiast, French toast lover, cautious traveler, cinephile and young adult with type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Mika takes an insulin shot before he eats lunch and dinner everyday to counter the effects that the food will have on his blood sugar levels. This is the reason for the bothersome stains.<\/p>\n
Mika currently works in finance for a venture start-up, Vesture, run by Nader Naeymi-Rad in Midtown Manhattan and has been there for a year and a half. He is the Director of Finance and Strategy for Nader and spends eleven hours a day structuring sales platforms and growth ideas, running finance systems, sitting through meetings, talking to banks and vendors and working through taxes and bills. He is also the President of the Young Leadership Committee, a branch of JDRF<\/a>. These groups both work to raise money for diabetes research, but the Young Leadership Committee specifically focuses on young adults ages 22 to 31. JDRF\u2019s goal is to fund advancements in diabetes treatments and preventions and ultimately help find a cure. Mika spends an hour and a half each night after work and three hours on the weekend, unpaid, organizing and planning fundraising events for the Young Leadership Committee.<\/p>\n Since 2014, Mika has raised around $175,000 a year for diabetes research through these fundraising events. Mika strives for seamless integration of his events into the lives of his fundraising participants. His latest event was at Soul Cycle; the committee sold out the 63-person class weeks before the event. One of their biggest events is One Night, a food and beverage tasting with around 500 people normally in attendance. The committee also hosts a couple galas each year with anywhere between 400 and 500 people attending. Mika spearheads the organization of these fundraising events and helps get the word out through friends, family and his peers with diabetes.<\/p>\n Though Drew Mika is successful in most everything he sets his mind to, his success did not come easy. It stemmed from two life-altering events, both of which occurred in 2001.<\/p>\n Mika was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2001 at age eleven. He believes no one should have to self-diagnose the way he did.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned about diabetes in school from a very, very outdated textbook, which is upsetting. Growing up in an upper-middle class suburb, this shouldn\u2019t happen,\u201d says Mika who grew up in Cranford, New Jersey. \u201cI learned about all these symptoms, and I caught myself with the symptoms\u2014frequent urination, extreme thirst, lack of concentration, moodiness. So, [my mom took me to] the doctor, and I had diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n Misinformed from the outdated textbook, Mika saw this diagnosis as an end.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t informed enough to know that diabetes was livable, that you were able to continue your life,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought I was done.\u201d<\/p>\n Though he wasn\u2019t lacking in \u201cten-year-old freak outs\u201d over diabetes\u2014he had them\u2014living his life functionally with the disease was just expected.<\/p>\n \u201cI did what they told me to do. There was no question.\u201d<\/p>\n Both of his parents, Andy and Nancy, offered him support when he was diagnosed.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was great,\u201d Nancy said. \u201cHe just went along with it. He was never rebellious.\u201d<\/p>\n They turned blood checks into a game when Mika was young. He and his two younger brothers, Kenny and Greg, had to guess what Drew\u2019s blood sugar levels were going to be\u2014whoever got closest would win a dollar.<\/p>\n \u201cIt becomes a lifelong lifestyle,\u201d his father, Andy, says. He and Nancy taught Mika what to do, how to check his blood, what to eat and how to continue to live his life normally, but doing it was his duty. \u201cWe put the responsibility on him.\u201d<\/p>\n Andy is currently the Head of Investment Operations at Oppenheimer Funds and has been there for 17 years. He\u2019s been working on Wall Street for 30 years and worked at various investment companies there before landing his job at Oppenheimer. With Andy\u2019s success, Nancy was able to stop working for her dad\u2019s temporary help company when Drew was born.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were fortunate in that we were well off,\u201d says Mika, \u201cAre<\/em> well off.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say that times were always easy for the Mikas. The second event that changed Drew Mika\u2019s life came on September 11th<\/sup> 2001, shortly after his diagnosis.<\/p>\n Andy worked on the 31st<\/sup> floor of tower two in the World Trade Center in 2001. He watched as the plane hit tower one on September 11th<\/sup>. Mika struggles to tell the story. \u201cThat was the best and worst day of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n He was in computer class at the time tower one was hit. \u201cI went to the office. I peeked in the teacher\u2019s lounge, and I saw building two get hit,\u201d he chokes, \u201cI somehow knew that was my dad\u2019s building, and I saw it collapse. Tears<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n And right as that single word leaves his lips, the tears flow.<\/p>\n \u201cThis story gets harder to tell every time.\u201d He sniffles faintly, trying to bury the impact this day has had on his life.<\/p>\n His dad was fine. He ran as fast as he could down the stairs when he saw tower one get hit and kept going until he reached the sanctity of his home in New Jersey. He came home covered in dust. But he came home.<\/p>\n It was the best and worst day of Drew Mika\u2019s life. And, he sees that day the same way he sees diabetes.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the darkest times comes a ray of light. That\u2019s it.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s also diabetes\u2014\u201cAre you going to see it as something that stopped you or something that created you?\u201d<\/p>\n Mika let it create him.<\/p>\n He attended the University of Rhode Island with the intention of studying journalism and becoming a writer. He worked toward a journalism degree and added on an English major, nervous that one degree wouldn\u2019t be enough. After taking a political science class that he loved, he added political science as his third major with hopes he would really stand out. While working toward earning a triple-major degree, Mika focused his general education courses around economics.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just naturally interested in economics,\u201d Mika claims, \u201cThat\u2019s where the career in finance came from.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Mika\u2019s good friend, Darell Handler, from the University of Rhode Island, Mika was interested and involved in making contributions to diabetes throughout his time at the university.<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time in my life where everyone, including myself, was wrapped up in typical college student issues,\u201d says Darell, \u201cDrew was extraordinarily focused on giving back to a cause that he had been dealing with his entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating from college and commuting for nearly a year from home in Cranford to his first finance job with Morgan Stanley in New York City, Mika moved to Washington D.C. for a new job in finance with Greystone. At a company party, he was introduced to a man named Bill Lane whose son had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and suggested that Mika get involved with JDRF, which has a large Washington D.C. office.<\/p>\n \u201cI was hesitant at first, but within five hours, I knew,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew this was fascinating. These people were all there for the same cause, and they had absolutely no financial gain from it.\u201d<\/p>\n After moving to New York City in December of 2013, still with Greystone, Mika and a friend who worked two floors below him, Jon Stopol, set out to revamp the Young Leadership Committee of JDRF. They wrote a letter request with a plan to restructure the Young Leadership Committee,<\/a> give people positions and responsibilities and form a more structured business group. Once approved, they went from raising $60,000 a year with the committee to over $175,000. In 2017, Mika is shooting for $200,000.<\/p>\n