McCandless-based Variety's 'chief excitement officer' retires after long career helping kids

When Tyler Winfield at age 4 first met Charlie LaVallee, Tyler couldn’t talk. He was termed nonverbal due to a disability.

Fortunately, LaVallee was chief executive officer — or chief excitement officer as LaVallee likes to say — at Variety — the Children’s Charity, which provides services for disabled children, including MyVoice communication devices for nonverbal children, one of which was given to Tyler.

Fast forward seven years, and Tyler, now 11, is speaking on his own. His family said it’s because of MyVoice.

“I really truly do not know where he would be if he did not have this opportunity,” said his mom, Jen.

LaVallee, who is an advocate for public funding for these devices, said there’s no way to know how much such a device will help a child.

“Our job is not to predict the future. Our job is to give these kids a voice now,” LaVallee said.

LaVallee, after 10 years at the helm of Variety as chief executive officer, retired in October after a 40-year career in the health insurance field and being an advocate for children where he helped others by listening.

“If you listen, you learn,” said LaVallee, 68. who lives in Cranberry with his wife Terese.

Prior to coming to Variety, he served at Highmark as vice president and as executive director of the Highmark Caring Foundation.

Variety, located on Perry Highway in Wexford, provides life-changing mobility and communication equipment, like MyVoice, for special kids. For those eligible, it also provides adaptive-bicycles MyBike and an adaptive MyStroller.

LaVallee grew up in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, helping at his grandfather’s business, Kunst Bakery, even working there while attending Carnegie Mellon University. He recalls working 3 a.m. shifts, and then going to class in his bakery clothes and carrying doughnuts.

His mother, Ruth, also worked there 14 hours every day, six days a week. His grandfather, who attended school only to sixth grade, provided LaVallee with a work ethic and unconditional love that stayed with him throughout his life, he said.

And it’s certainly reflected in his career path.

LaVallee served as director of the Caring Program for Children in the 1980s at what was then Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Blue Shield and since became Highmark. He helped establish health care coverage for low-income families, particularly those affected by the steel industry closures during that decade.

The Caring Program for Children began in 1985. It was the first private-sector initiative in the nation providing health care coverage to children from low-income families who were ineligible for Medicaid.

The model was replicated in more than 20 states, he said. The Caring Program was used as the model for what is now known as the Children’s Health Insurance Program of Pennsylvania or CHIP.

It later led to the creation of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

His next venture came from a personal place. LaVallee’s stepson Josh died of an accident at age 21 in 1994. It was then his close personal friend, Fred Rogers, of “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” gave him some needed advice.

“Charles, take your heartache and do something,” Rogers told him.

“He was right. Fred really walked me through that darkness,” LaVallee said.

This helped him pioneer the creation of the Highmark Caring Place, a center for grieving children, adolescents, and their families, which has four locations in the state, including Pittsburgh, Warrendale, Erie, and Harrisburg.

LaVallee has also been director of the Homeless Education Network, an initiative of the Homeless Children’s Education Fund, based in Pittsburgh, which advocates and develops resources for children and youth experiencing homelessness.

“When I look back, I was fortunate to be a helper for children in need and especially children who were uninsured …, children who are grieving after the death of a loved one, the education of children experiencing homelessness, and children with disabilities,” he said.

LaVallee is excited and compassionate about what he does. He is especially serious about helping families through Variety.

“At Variety, we created My Bike, My Stroller, and My Voice because we first listened to the families express the unmet mobility and communication needs of their children. We then followed the same program model that we used for the Caring Program for Children with the hope to ultimately make system change,” he said.

LaVallee said he believes devices like MyVoice should be accessible to all children who have a communication disability because every child deserves a voice. He hopes public sector partnerships will step up just like they did with CHIP.

“To truly help the largest number of kids, we ultimately need system change and public sector funds to help kids with disabilities live life to the fullest. That’s our goal right now at Variety, and we’re looking for partners to help make that happen,” he said.

To date Variety has provided nearly 7,000 children with more than $10 million worth of adaptive equipment.

Sarah Gloss’s daughter Sadie, 10, is a recipient of a MyBike.

“At Variety, Sadie feels special … like a superstar, a princess, and as her mom, that means everything in the world to me. Charlie is at the center of that. He makes all of our kids feel special and included in things they might otherwise not be included in,” said Gloss, of Mt. Lebanon.

LaVallee looks forward to spending more time with his three grandchildren, Kalea, Tasi and Luca. He also treasures his nightly phone call with Kathy, his wife’s sister, who has Downs Syndrome, and likes to update him every night on her job at a sheltered workshop.

In addition to his late stepson, LaVallee has one son, Daniel, and three stepdaughters, Ally Sparacino, Sarah Vorsheck and Laena Ilk.

At a Variety retirement party on Oct. 21, friends and associates of LaVallee celebrated his work, including previously silent Tyler, who gave him a talking stuffed bear named “Tarlie.”

Tarlie says: “Hi, Charlie. Thank you for giving me a voice. It really means a lot to me. I love you, Charlie. Tyler.”