A pilot who gives back
Don’t you want to be his friend?
He is best known for his corporate headshots—Headshot Experience—and travels around the country. One day from his office he watched an airplane and thought “My God it would be fun to fly! I wonder how long that would take?” An hour later he was in Manassas, Virginia, taking his first flight lesson.
“Like everybody else, I learned in a 172 and then, for reasons I don’t understand, I bought an Archer II and that was a lot of fun, but you couldn’t go very far so I sold that. In the early 2000s I had a total lapse of judgment and bought a beautiful 1963 Bonanza. It was a mini-airliner. It had everything. It was the coolest thing.
“But you know what happened in 2008. That sort of affected my ability to generate revenue. So, it just didn’t make any sense to have it anymore.”
As Fazio is always one to bounce back from adversity, the economic downturn of 2008 was simply another opportunity for him to pivot to another revenue source. As was a cancer diagnosis. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I still remember that first weekend. I was doing one of our biggest gigs. And then everything was canceled,” he said. “But there’s always opportunity in adversity and an aviation thing came into play. I thought I’ve got to get a drone. The Raleigh Visitors Bureau gave me six figures to spend six months flying and photographing their assets.”
His work, adversity, and opportunity led to the reason why Fazio is featured here—he started giving back.
I’m always of this idea that every day you have to do something to improve your lot in life and the lives of others.”—Chuck Fazio
His work, adversity, and opportunity led to the reason why Fazio is featured here—he started giving back.
“I started going to Cuba in 2016. And the thing that hits you is they are the nicest people ever. I travel the world and the world’s full of nice people, but I’ve never met nicer people than the Cubans. And the thing is, they need everything. I started going there and bringing them suitcases full of stuff.”
He started “Friends of Chuck” the FOC Foundation, raising money as well as accepting contributions. He had more than 4,000 “friends” on his Facebook account and they’d bring him donations. He’d put out a list, and people would fulfill the requests.
“People ask me, ‘What should I bring?’ Literally anything. When I tell you they have nothing, they have nothing,” he said. “My favorite things to bring is reams of paper and crayons for the kids because when you have a blank sheet of paper, crayons, and your imagination, you can create anything.”
His philanthropy has spread into everything he does; on a recent flight to New Orleans, he overheard a mother and daughter on a Make-A-Wish foundation trip. He went to his computer, called up his friends—the FOC—and said let’s help, raising $1,500 for the mom and daughter while still in the air. Now he’s making trips to the Philippines, raising money and goods for the people there.
“Why the Philippines? Why not? The world’s a sad place all over. Pick where you want to help. I had gone there to document a medical mission. They took me around their little town and there were a lot of homebound invalids. And I’m like we have to do something. I got on Facebook and said we need rice. We got dozens and dozens of care packages for these old folks,” he said. “But then I’m all about the kids. There is the indigenous population, and I came up with the idea of working with the local government to help kids. We have adopted a school. We got to feed these kids. So right now, we’re building a kitchen. It costs like 150 bucks a month to feed 53 freaking kids. How can you not do it?
“I can’t participate in any type of organization and not try to help that organization do what they need to do.”
He has been a major donor to the AOPA Foundation, which funds the Air Safety Institute. For one of the ASI silent auctions, he bought the opportunity to name the AOPA ramp after his parents.
“I thought well, not only do I get to give money, but I get to do a little memorial to my mother and father,” he said. “I’m always of this idea that every day you have to do something to improve your lot in life and the lives of others.”
Would you like to be a friend of Chuck? Check out FOCfoundation.com and make a new friend. 
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