The Shoemaker's Son
Chuck Avampato is known in Charleston for his role as the president of the Clay Foundation, for his close relationship with the Clay Family and for the new Avampato Discovery Museum named in his honor. What the Capital City doesn’t know is that his humble beginnings instilled in him a strong will to follow his dreams and with that will, and the little luck he found along the way, helped get him where he is today.
“We would walk to school like everybody back then did with snow up to our knees every day,” Avampato says, smiling at the exaggerated memory of his childhood from behind his desk in the Clay Foundation’s beautifully renovated historic building on the Boulevard. The view from his office window is of the gently rolling river and the golden and scarlet leaves on display on the riverbank. “One of us,” he recalls of himself and his brothers, “would have to go home at noontime to get my father’s lunch bucket and take it down to the shoe shop, and then we’d all have to work in the shop after school every day.”
His gentle eyes reflect a special fondness for those days years ago as he describes his home. “My father loved vegetables and my mother loved canning, so we had a huge yard, a big fruit orchard with apples, plums, and cherries.” He chuckles at the memory of the first car the family owned. “My next oldest brother bought one at an auction. I guess we were in high school. He didn’t have the money, but I did. So I’m with my friends and everybody’s like, ‘Come on, come on, your brother bought a car!’ And then I realized I had to give him the money to pay for it. We all jumped in the car – none of us had drivers’ licenses – and we drove off. That’s one of those things I won’t forget.”
Because his father had never owned a car, it was difficult for Chuck to learn how to drive. He remembers one of the first times he drove, choking up at the memory of his father with obvious adoration. “I guess one of the first times I learned to drive, I took my father to work. He had respiratory problems and a really tough time breathing (he was in the war and I guess got gassed) and he also had a real tough time walking.”
His family is an emotional topic, one that stirs memories of joy and sorrow. He was close to his parents, three brothers and sister growing up in the small, economically challenged town of Derry, Pennsylvania. Despite the feeling of impending doom that their hometown nurtured through the lack of jobs, each of the Avampato children received an education, and one by one, each left the small town of Derry to find their place in a stable workforce.
His journey into the world of numbers was not a planned one. In fact, his dream was to become an aeronautical engineer. His first job was with a specialty steel company where he won a scholarship. “I obviously was going to be a metallurgical major, which I didn’t know what that was. In fact, I didn’t even know where the school was that I applied to.” Chuck remained a metallurgical major for two years until he ran into some college students that convinced him to join their fraternity. “I didn’t have any money to be in a fraternity and their advisor happened to be an accounting professor that I liked a lot, so they found a way for me to join the fraternity. I was the house manager, which got paid, plus I was the chief pot man for the fraternity across the street so I got my meals free.” Soon after, he changed to an accounting major.
Chuck’s father passed away after his change in majors and he chose to drop out of school for a year to help his mother sell the shoe shop. When his mother took a part-time job at a small pizzeria, he returned to school to finish his studies. It was during his senior year that he met his wife, Judy.
“It was a blind date,” he remembers, rolling a pen between his fingers as his mind wanders back to that time. “I’m shy…you wouldn’t think so being in a fraternity but I was. We both had a great time on that date. We went to a football game. Afterwards we were crossing this field. She started running away from me and I tripped her with my umbrella – and when I reached down to help her up, I tripped and crashed on top of her.”
He and his wife began their life in Wheeling after Chuck took a job with Price Waterhouse. As a manager of the company, he assisted with an audit for the West Virginia Department of Highways, a job that had him traveling back and forth from Wheeling to Charleston, staying in the Charleston House during the week and watching the river go by. It was then that he decided he wanted to move his family, which now included his three children, to Charleston.
“I guess the best way to interview is to really not want the job because you can really be yourself,” he says as he thinks back to his interview with Charleston Newspapers. An offer was extended and Chuck declined. A second offer from the newspaper followed – an offer he couldn’t refuse. “It’s probably the best decision I ever made in my life.”
Chuck became an employee of Charleston Newspapers, the operating company for the Daily Mail and the Gazette. Through his position, he was able to do what few people are – he worked closely with two competing entities, making sound judgments for each while keeping classified information to himself. He did his job so well, in fact, that each company made him an officer.
“The best thing that ever happened in my professional life was that both Lyell and Buck decided they were going to leave a substantial amount of their income to the foundation and they asked me to stay on and run the foundation for them.” He didn’t know what a foundation was but he was about to receive a crash course in directing one and giving money away.
“It seems interesting that a family that’s been here for many many years seemed to pluck me out of the sky and trust me with everything, so I felt I had a deep sense of responsibility to them for what they’ve enabled me to do and entrusted me with.” Chuck’s fondness for Lyell and Buck Clay is evident in the gentle change in his tone when their names come up. Of Buck’s death and Lyell's fight with Parkinson’s disease, he says, “It’s too bad because the years in which they participated they really enjoyed this aspect of their lives, more so than I could ever imagine.”
When the Clays sold their business, it took between two and three years to liquidate the companies. The liquidations resulted in cash and they were able to immediately fund their foundation. In order to learn how to do his new job within the foundation, Chuck joined the Council on Foundations and went to seminars that taught about giving away money.
“The beauty of the thing was that my background is probably the best background to have to have for being in my type of the business, at least in my opinion. When we give money to somebody, we want them to succeed. I carefully looked at their numbers, I carefully looked at their plan, followed up to make sure that they did achieve what they said they were going to do.”
The Clay family decided to make a contribution to the community above and beyond the contributions to human services and education and that gift came in the form of the Clay Center. “I never dreamed of the magnitude of that challenge,” he says, shaking his head with slight amusement at the project he invested so much time in.
When asked about the success of the project, his shoulders slide into a solemn slump, his eyes fall to the folded hands on his desk that have done so much work and he reveals his biggest disappointment – the misconception the public has about the Clay Center. “So many people think this center was built for the elitists and that is so disappointing to us because we don’t know what to do, how to get the message out to the people that this is their center, this was not built for the people that can afford to fly to New York to see a performance up there. This is for the people and citizens of West Virginia and we need to find a way to get them in there and see that that’s what it’s all about. That’s why I’m involved with it and that’s why I’ll continue to be involved with it until we can get it to a point where we feel we have achieved our mission, and at this time we haven’t because the general public hasn’t accepted it yet.”
He pinpoints the Clay brothers’ passion for giving and sharing to the fact that they loved West Virginia and appreciated what they had, an appreciation that theygot from their parents and passed on to Chuck. He sits silently for a moment, reminiscing on the past he’s shared with them, and chokes up. “They’ve been good to me, and when you grow up with nothing, and you’re rewarded for your hard work... I have a real deep sense of obligation (to them).”
For a man who didn’t know what a vacation was until he got married, Chuck enjoys the beach and international travel. “Probably Florence or Venice would be my pick to spend time in. Nothing is more exciting or interesting in these foreign towns (than) when you get up early when everyone else is getting up. They’ve got to go do their daily activities, they’re going to school, going to get their coffee and newspaper. It all comes alive.”
If there is one message Chuck could send to the young people of today, it would be to never give up. “You can make your dreams come true if you don’t give up. There will be a lot of down time but I honestly believe that anybody can do whatever they want to do if they don’t give up. I think I got more than what I ever dreamed of because I also got lucky I achieved more than I ever dreamed I’d have and maybe that’s possible because you never give up.”
Chuck has one other message that he vows to continue spreading until he sees a change and that is for the public to support the Clay Center. “It’s not for the elitists, it’s for everyone. We won’t accomplish our goal until that happens.”
