Susan Lopez-Payan, BA

Susan joined the California Diabetes Program in 2000 and manages daily program operations. She works closely with the Program Chief to promote the program, projects and resources in the areas of health care system quality improvement, community health interventions, surveillance, and public policy. She is the lead in the area of internal and external communications. 

Susan was instrumental in recruiting an expert workgroup to inform the 2007 Governor's Healthcare Reform proposal for the California Medi-Cal Diabetes Prevention and Management Initiative.  She serves on the national evaluation workgroup of the National Diabetes Education Program.  She also serves on the Executive Committee for the Diabetes Coalition of California.

Susan has a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from California State University at Fresno and also completed a business management certificate program from the University of California Davis. She has over 15 years of experience in business, marketing, product development and project management and has directed award winning teams of writers and designers.  She produced hundreds of publications while working at the University of California, San Francisco, Arthur Andersen Worldwide and George Mason University.  In addition, she was creative director and vice president for a marketing communications firm in Washington, DC that specialized in marketing intangibles. Clients included the National Science Foundation, Indian Health Service, Federal Occupational Health, National Health Service Corps, Federal Highways Administration, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Houston Associates International.

Achievements include the Golden Web award, International Association of Business Communicators awards, Sacramento Ad Club award, National Association of Government Communicators awards. She was a contributing writer for the book Notable Hispanic American Women published by Gale Research.

Susan was the 2005 Show Chair for the Watercolor Artists of Sacramento Horizons, which is part of the Sacramento Fine Arts Center.  She has studied art at UC Santa Cruz, the Corcoran, the Smithsonian Institute, Oakland College of Arts and Crafts, Sedona Arts Center and with private instructors including Ken Potter, Jan Sitts, Ernie Clausen and Barbara Jackson.