Meet Board member Charles “Chuck” Walls

When Chuck’s third child, Collin, sat too close to the TV, he and his wife thought that was merely unusual. The day after Christmas, when Collin was around 5 years old, the family learned that he had congenital X-Linked retinoschisis, splitting of the retinal layers, and there was no treatment and no cure. It was predicted that Collin would eventually be blind.

Chuck immediately took a leave of two weeks from the army where he was serving as a LT. Col. as an experimental test pilot and sat at the computer to find out what could be done to help his son. Dr. Michael Trese’s name continued to pop up and soon the Walls had an appointment with him. Dr. Trese evaluated Collin and discussed research that was ongoing with a synthetic schisin that he was hoping might lead to a treatment. Two years later they met with other staff to learn about working with children with vision problems because his wife is a special needs teacher and could put to good use information on helping children with low vision. Then he joined the PRRF Board.

Chuck said they have struggled with finding a balance of letting Collin do all the contact sports he so loves and yet protecting his vision. He feels there is so much research to do which will help prevent or cure pediatric vision problems and wants to do more, faster.

For that reason, he is reaching out to families with children who have vision impairment in order to connect and inform them of the advances which are happening. He wants to build teams of families and invites parents to contact him at (757)338-1775 or cdwalls@yahoo.com.