Atlanta – Team Type 1 is bringing management services in-house for the 2010 season, Chief Executive Officer Phil Southerland announced Tuesday.

The announcement means the endurance sports program that consists primarily of athletes with Type 1 diabetes will employ its own staff to handle the day-to-day operations for six programs, including a pair of professional cycling teams.

Team Sports, Inc., which has been employed the past two seasons to manage Team Type 1’s infrastructure, will not be a part of the program after the contract between the two parties expires on Dec. 31, 2009.

Team Sports General Manager Tom Schuler said the separation is an amicable one. Schuler has been with Team Type 1 since its initial season of professional racing in 2008, is a member of the Bicycling Hall of Fame and past owner of the groundbreaking Saturn Pro Cycling Team from 1992-2003.

“I was helping Team Type 1 co-founders Phil Southerland and Joe Eldridge even before the team was formally announced,” Schuler said. “Though Team Sports will no longer be a part of Team Type 1, the relationship between the three of us will always be there.”

Schuler helped Team Type 1 expand to include a number of programs, including a women’s professional team, a triathlon team, a development squad and Team Type 2. In the past two years, Team Type 1 has won nearly 100 races, including this year’s Race Across America (RAAM) in the eight-person team division.

The next step to accommodate further expansion in 2010 was for Team Type 1 to bring its business operations in-house, Southerland said.

“The success of Team Type 1 has not come without having good people employed in the right positions,” Southerland said. “Bringing our operations in-house means we can directly employ these people and provide them with health insurance and other competitive benefits.”

For 2009, Team Type 1’s primary sponsors are Apidra® and Lantus® insulins (manufactured by sanofi-aventis), the FreeStyle Navigator® Continuous Monitoring System by Abbott Diabetes Care, Insulet’s Insulet OmniPod Insulin Management System, Dex4 – makers of rapid-acting glucose and VSP Vision Care, the nation’s largest eyecare provider.

In addition to inspiring others living with diabetes to take action to improve their health and achieve their own personal goals, Team Type 1 aims to place a rider with Type 1 diabetes in the Tour de France by 2012.