In the office, Mark Swinton ‘83 fights for improved diabetic care for more than 30 million Americans, but in the gym, he battles for continued personal bests and world records.

By Emily Christensen | Photos Roland Ferrie ’08

The first time Mark Swinton ’83 entered a weightlifting competition he was a college senior who had just finished up his final season of football at Wartburg. Despite being a novice lifter, Swinton brought home a trophy and a passion for the sport that led him to organize a competition for high school students on campus.

“We must have had well over 100 high school kids on campus for our bench press tournament. We hired an announcer, had two benching platforms and six judges,” he said. “I remember even (former head wrestling coach) Dick Walker was impressed. It was a great day.”

The competition at Wartburg continued for a couple of years, and after graduating Swinton even returned to help during the medal ceremony. As he grew busier with graduate school — he earned an MBA from the University of Chicago — then work and raising a family, competitive lifting fell by the wayside. About eight years ago, Swinton, who now lives in California, started lifting at the gym again. Without much forethought or training, he entered the NASPOWER Cup just down the road from him in Bakersfield. Though he nearly fell over on his squat, he set the bench press record for his age group and deadlifted 397 pounds.

“You get to a point in your life when you want to do new things. I have spent years going to swim meets and cross country meets and baseball games for my kids. Now I only have two of the six left at home, and I realized it was my time to do things that connected me to another community of people,” he said.

Though more than 1,800 miles away, that community still includes his Wartburg teammate Lon Lawler ’83 (read more about him on the inside cover), the friend who drove Swinton to Cedar Rapids for that first competition as a college senior. A former high school football coach and current P.E. teacher in Osage, Lawler is a pro at providing motivation when Swinton’s tank is running on empty. Lawler is unable to attend all of Swinton’s competitions, but when lifting brings Swinton back to the Midwest, Lawler is the first to step up and help. In fact, he was spotting Swinton in July 2021 when he knocked out a 326-pound squat, just seven months after his first outing.

“I’m not surprised Mark has had this success powerlifting. He’s always brought a fierce intensity into the weight room and a drive to reach certain goals,” Lawler said. “I just try to provide positive encouragement and guidance along the way. We didn’t have strength coaches in high school or college, so we are used to coaching each other. Trust and belief can go a long way in supporting an athlete as they prepare and compete.”

Training three times a week, Swinton has been able to improve his lifts enough to set a world record and two U.S. records in squat and bench. He later broke the full power (total of squat, bench, and deadlift) world record for the 60-year-old 82.5 kg weight class, lifting 1,086 pounds and  beating the previous record, held by a Russian, by 6 pounds. 

“This is definitely an adrenaline-seeking experience. The intensity at those competitions is indescribable because we all know there is so much riding on all the work you’ve done to that point,” he said. “Especially at a place like nationals, but even at the smaller meets, it all comes down to those three lifts. They are more intense than any big meeting I’ve ever been part of at work or anything I’ve ever had to do for my family.”

And, as senior director of professional relations, health policy, and advocacy for Abbott Diabetes Care, Swinton has led some pretty important meetings.

“My goal is to improve the lives of people with diabetes through policy changes,” he said. “I coordinate with professionals, physicians, and patients to make sure that Congress and state governments are aware of the issues facing individuals with diabetes.”

That also includes changing the standard of care, which for individuals with diabetes has meant progressing from a urine test to pricking a finger to a glucose monitor that can send a constant stream of readings to an app on someone’s phone.

“I love my job because who else has the opportunity to impact the lives of 30 million people in a positive way? This is a group effort, and I get to make sure that everyone is moving in the same direction,” said Swinton, whose father died of complications from diabetes. “My goal, before I retire in five years, is to change the standard of care in the United States so that everyone knows that they shouldn’t be poking their fingers anymore, and they have access to the tools that make that possible.”

Though little of Swinton’s current work requires the skills he acquired while earning accounting and computer science degrees at Wartburg, he still believes it was his college experiences that set him up for success in his field.

In addition to the lessons he learned on the athletic field under Dr. Don Canfield, Swinton’s work in the classroom and on special projects with Dr. Marvin Ott taught him the value of hard work and networking at a young age.

“Starting my freshman year and through most of my senior year, I worked with Dr. Ott assisting him with running Wartburg’s administrative computer system. I spent many nights with Dr. Ott in the computer center, as it was only available after the science building closed at 10 p.m.,” he said.

Ott also arranged a consulting project for Swinton in Haiti during his senior year. While there, he met with Haitian government officials to design a computerized health care database for them.

“I toured Cité Soleil, Port au Prince’s poorest neighborhood, to understand challenges in creating such a system, and spent two weeks working with officials to develop specs and begin coding,” explained Swinton, adding that those experiences, coupled with the internship Ott helped him secure with Hewlett-Packard in Oregon the summer between his junior and senior years, were key to Ernst & Young bringing him on board in its Chicago office and his quick promotion through the ranks.

“I was ahead of my time by about 10 years with having both computer science and accounting. One reason I’ve been so successful is because all of this stuff costs money, and I understand how the finance system works and can speak the language of the people who control the money because of my background. That gives them confidence in me. For me, it’s always been about being ready for the next opportunity that presents itself.”