The history of CPOF begins with five correctional officers who believed their profession deserved something more. But the Foundation’s earliest work was also carried by the families who opened their homes, changed their plans and shared the founders’ commitment. No one represents that part of CPOF’s story more fully than Charleene “Char” Corby—CPOF’s first representative, longtime Chief Administrative Officer and current Ambassador, whose nearly four decades of service helped transform a small California foundation into a national correctional family.

The Correctional Peace Officers Foundation was created by five correctional officers.

It was not built by five people alone.

Behind the meetings, handwritten letters, early publications, fundraising efforts and long conversations about what CPOF could become were families who made room for the mission.

They gave up evenings, weekends, celebrations and time together.

They opened their homes.

They answered telephones.

They fed whoever arrived.

They listened as ideas were developed, challenged and improved.

They helped turn conviction into action.

Charleene “Char” Corby was there from the beginning.

Before CPOF had a national network of representatives, Char drove to institutions herself.

Before email, online applications, GPS or cell phones, she relied on handwritten requests, paper maps and a cup of coffee.

Before CPOF had an established staff, Char helped create the daily structure that allowed the founders’ promise to reach correctional professionals and families across the country.

She was the wife of Founding Director Larry Corby.

She was also one of the people who made the founders’ vision possible.

When the Foundation Began at Home

In CPOF’s earliest days, formal office space was limited and resources were scarce.

Much of the work happened wherever people could gather.

For Larry Corby and the other founders, that often meant the Corby home.

Char opened her kitchen and garage to the team. She made sure people were fed, gave them a place to work and became a sounding board as they discussed how CPOF could better serve correctional professionals and their families.

That role should not be mistaken for standing on the sidelines.

Char listened to the ideas.

She understood the problems the founders were trying to solve.

She knew the realities of correctional service because her own husband worked inside the profession.

She also understood what that service required from a family.

Correctional work affected schedules, holidays, sleep, family plans and the constant knowledge that someone you loved worked in an unpredictable environment.

When Larry and the other founders began discussing the widows and children left behind after line-of-duty deaths, Char understood that the officer was never the only person affected.

Behind every uniform was a family.

That truth became central to CPOF’s mission—and to Char’s life.

A Shared Commitment Within the Corby Family

CPOF was never simply Larry’s work.

It became a shared commitment within the Corby family.

Larry and Char were married for 47 years. Together, they raised their daughter, Camie, and son, Jarrod, while giving an extraordinary amount of their family’s time to the Foundation.

The work often required extended travel, missed celebrations and plans interrupted by tragedy. When a correctional professional was killed, a family needed help or an important relationship had to be built, CPOF’s needs did not wait for a convenient time.

Camie and Jarrod grew up watching both parents answer those needs.

They also participated.

When Larry produced early correctional publications, the Corby children walked around the family dining room table collating pages. The oversized sheets were stapled and folded by hand before they could be distributed.

The Corby home was not merely the residence of a CPOF founder.

It was part office, part production room, part meeting space and part gathering place for a mission still learning how to grow.

Years later, Camie acknowledged that there were times when she resented how often the Foundation took her parents away.

Only with time did the larger picture become fully visible.

Larry and Char were not simply volunteering for an organization.

They were helping build a national family—one that would eventually surround the Corbys with the same love they had spent decades giving to others.

CPOF’s First Representative

As the Foundation began growing, it needed more supporting members.

The mission depended upon correctional professionals who were willing to contribute regularly so CPOF could assist families after line-of-duty deaths and during catastrophic hardship.

Someone had to explain the mission.

Someone had to enter institutions, speak with employees and ask them to believe that a small, developing organization could become something lasting.

Char became that person.

She was CPOF’s first representative.

Her early territory was not one city or a compact group of facilities. California’s correctional institutions were spread across the state, often separated by long stretches of rural highway.

There were no emails to facility leadership.

There were no online calendars.

There were no navigation apps offering real-time directions.

Char mailed written requests asking for permission to visit facilities during shift changes. Once approval arrived, she studied paper maps and planned her route.

Then she drove.

Sometimes she left home in the hours before sunrise so she could reach an institution as officers arrived for an early shift or left after working through the night.

She traveled alone to remote facilities with her maps, her coffee and a clear goal:

Gain supporting members so CPOF could help more correctional families.

The Courage to Walk Through the Gate

Visiting a correctional institution as an outside representative required persistence.

Char had to coordinate with administrators, pass through security and earn a few minutes with employees whose attention was already divided between long shifts, institutional responsibilities and their own families.

Many had never heard of CPOF.

Some were understandably skeptical.

Char had to make the mission real to them.

She explained that correctional professionals faced the same dangers and sacrifices as other public-safety employees, yet their families often lacked comparable support when tragedy occurred.

She asked people to contribute to an organization that was still young.

She could not point to decades of accomplishments.

She could point only to the need, the commitment of the people building CPOF and the promise that correctional families deserved better.

Char kept showing up.

Institution after institution.

Shift after shift.

Conversation after conversation.

Each supporting member helped make the next act of assistance possible.

Two Women Carrying the Story

After Correctional Officer Hal Burchfield was killed in the line of duty, CPOF stood beside his widow, Barbara, and their family.

Barbara later joined Char on the road.

For more than 25 years, the two women visited correctional institutions and shared CPOF’s mission from two deeply personal perspectives.

Char could explain what the Foundation had been created to do.

Barbara could explain what its presence meant when tragedy became real.

Together, they showed correctional employees that CPOF was not an abstract charity.

It was people showing up for people.

Their partnership also reflected something essential about the Foundation.

CPOF did not view surviving families only as recipients of assistance. It welcomed them into a continuing community. Some of those family members later became volunteers, advocates, mentors and sources of strength for the newly bereaved.

Barbara’s willingness to travel with Char transformed personal loss into service.

Char helped ensure that Barbara’s experience reached people who needed to understand why membership mattered.

Their years on the road helped CPOF grow.

More importantly, they helped the mission remain personal.

Taking the Mission Nationwide

Char’s work eventually extended far beyond California.

As CPOF developed relationships in other states, she traveled across the country to speak with correctional professionals, agency leaders, associations and potential supporters.

One early relationship developed with the New York City Department of Correction after Correction Captain Stanley Rhein was killed in 1991.

Local agencies had been unable to provide meaningful assistance to his widow and children because he was not considered a police officer.

CPOF stepped in.

The Rhein family attended PROJECT 2000 III in Washington, D.C., where Captain Rhein was honored.

The relationship between CPOF and New York City corrections continued growing. Char personally addressed the Correction Captains Association and later documented that history in the CPO Family magazine.

Her account did more than summarize organizational activity.

It preserved why the relationship mattered.

Correctional employees wanted their service recognized.

Their surviving families wanted to know their loved ones would be remembered.

The officers supporting CPOF wanted proof that the correctional community could build its own system of care when others failed to recognize the profession’s sacrifices.

Char helped carry that message from California to New York and into correctional communities throughout the country.

Building a National Representative Network

Char could not visit every institution forever.

For CPOF to become truly national, it needed people in correctional systems throughout the country who understood the mission and could build trusted local relationships.

Char began recruiting and training representatives.

She taught them how to enter an institution respectfully, explain CPOF clearly and connect correctional professionals with help when hardship occurred.

The work was about far more than collecting membership applications.

Representatives became CPOF’s eyes, ears and hands within correctional communities.

They learned when an officer was seriously ill.

They heard about house fires, natural disasters and unexpected deaths.

They helped identify families needing assistance.

They represented CPOF at memorials, academies, conferences and institutional events.

Char expected each representative to understand the responsibility behind the title.

No matter where they lived, they were expected to practice the same principle:

Take care of our own.

Among the people who worked with Char was Don Dease. After retiring from the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Don served as a representative across South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. Working with Char, he helped expand CPOF’s presence throughout the Southeast and later joined the Board of Directors.

That progression—from representative to national leader—illustrated the kind of network Char helped create.

She did not merely recruit people to perform tasks.

She developed people capable of carrying the mission forward.

The Woman Behind the Office

As CPOF grew, Char’s responsibilities grew with it.

She moved from first representative into senior administrative leadership, eventually serving as CPOF’s Chief Administrative Officer.

The title represented decades of accumulated knowledge.

Char understood membership because she had personally asked officers to join.

She understood representatives because she had been the first one.

She understood PROJECT because she had watched it grow from its earliest gatherings.

She understood surviving families because she had welcomed them, listened to them and remained connected to them.

She understood the founders because she had worked beside them when CPOF was still an idea being discussed in kitchens and garages.

Inside the office, Char helped turn the founders’ convictions into daily operations.

Membership had to be processed.

Representatives needed supplies and guidance.

Families needed immediate responses.

PROJECT had to be planned.

Relationships with agencies had to be maintained.

Telephone calls, letters and requests arrived from across the country.

The work was rarely glamorous.

It was essential.

Char helped create an organization capable of delivering on the promise its founders had made.

Welcoming People Into the Family

For many people, Char became one of the first faces of CPOF.

At PROJECT 2000, she welcomed attendees, assisted with registration and helped families, officers and guests understand where they belonged.

Those moments mattered.

A family attending PROJECT for the first time might arrive carrying grief, uncertainty and no idea what to expect.

An officer invited after surviving a serious assault might be uncomfortable receiving recognition.

A new representative might know only a handful of people.

Char helped welcome them into the room.

She understood that CPOF’s mission was not fulfilled only by issuing a check or holding a ceremony.

People needed connection.

They needed to know someone remembered their name.

They needed to feel that when CPOF called itself a family, the word meant something.

Helping PROJECT Become a Place for Children

The Corby family also played an important role in the growth of the CPOF Kids and Teens programs.

PROJECT 2000 was created to honor correctional professionals killed in the line of duty and surround their surviving families with continued support.

But children attending the early gatherings needed a place of their own.

Char and Larry’s daughter, Camie, was among the first to gather the children together and give them activities during PROJECT.

What began informally grew into the CPOF Kids Room.

Over the years, children who had lost a parent returned to PROJECT, formed friendships and helped welcome newly bereaved children. Some grew into teenagers and recognized that older children needed their own space and activities.

The program evolved with them.

That continuity reflected something the Corby family understood from the beginning:

Children do not finish grieving when a memorial service ends.

They grow up carrying their parent’s story.

CPOF must be willing to grow with them.

Char watched generations of CPOF Kids return year after year. Their presence demonstrated what the founders’ promise looked like over time.

It looked like children being remembered.

It looked like friendships formed through shared understanding.

It looked like a national correctional family keeping its word.

Personally Inviting Others to Serve

Char had an instinct for recognizing people who could strengthen the Foundation.

She did not always wait for them to volunteer.

Sometimes she called.

Honor Guard member Tania Arguello remembers receiving a telephone call from Char asking whether she would be interested in joining the CPOF National Honor Guard.

Tania accepted and became part of the team in 2008.

That invitation helped shape years of ceremonial service honoring fallen correctional professionals and supporting their families.

Char’s influence worked that way.

She opened doors.

She recognized commitment.

She invited people into service and then trusted them to carry the responsibility forward.

Welcoming a Future Chairman

In 2003, Char joined Carol Novey—wife of founder Don Novey—and Rachel Lee at the California Basic Correctional Peace Officer Academy.

There, they introduced a young cadet named Chevi Amrein to CPOF and helped initiate her supporting membership.

At the time, none of them could have known exactly where Chevi’s career would lead.

She would become a Correctional Sergeant, Counselor, Captain, Associate Warden and longtime Honor Guard Commander.

She would join the CPOF Board.

More than two decades later, she would become the first woman elected Chairman in the Foundation’s history.

Chevi has described Char as a CPOF icon.

The connection between Char’s academy visit and Chevi’s eventual chairmanship illustrates how legacy is built.

One generation enters a classroom and explains the mission.

A young officer listens.

She becomes a member.

She serves.

Years later, she becomes responsible for leading the organization forward.

Char’s work at that academy did not end when the membership form was completed.

It continued through everything Chevi later brought to CPOF.

A Family That Gave—and Was Held in Return

For decades, Char and Larry stood beside correctional families during some of the most painful moments of their lives.

In 2014, the CPOF family was called to stand beside Char.

Larry died on March 18 after a brief battle with brain cancer.

He was the first of CPOF’s Founding Five to pass away.

For the organization, the loss was profound.

For Char, it was the loss of her husband of 47 years, her partner in building CPOF and the person with whom she had shared nearly every chapter of the Foundation’s history.

At Larry’s memorial, the CPOF National Honor Guard rendered honors.

Their son, Jarrod, later wrote about the experience. Although he had witnessed formal flag presentations before, seeing the ceremony performed for his father made it deeply personal. He described it as breathtaking.

On behalf of Char and Camie, Jarrod thanked the Board, Commander Steve Dizmon and the entire National Honor Guard for the care they showed the family.

The organization Char and Larry had spent decades building now surrounded them.

The time they had given had not disappeared.

It returned as honor, presence and love when the Corby family needed it most.

Carrying More Than One Loss

The Corby family later experienced another devastating loss.

Jarrod passed away on April 12, 2023.

For Char and Camie, the loss added another layer of grief to a family already carrying Larry’s absence.

Jarrod’s earlier words about his father’s memorial now preserve something especially meaningful.

They record a son’s pride in his father.

They express gratitude for the people who cared for his mother and sister.

And they capture the moment when CPOF’s mission became personal to the family of one of its founders.

Char had spent her life helping an organization learn how to walk beside grieving families.

She now understood that journey in an even deeper way.

Yet her connection to CPOF endured.

Pictures Are Memories

After Larry’s passing, Char reflected on one of his familiar sayings:

“Pictures are memories.”

She had many of them.

Some were photographs she could hold.

Others were pictures carried only in her mind.

Larry standing beside the founders.

The Corby children circling the dining room table with pages of The Granite.

Meetings in the kitchen and garage.

Early mornings with paper maps spread across the seat of a car.

Barbara Burchfield beside her on another institutional visit.

Families arriving at PROJECT.

Children returning year after year.

Representatives growing into leaders.

Officers becoming members after hearing CPOF’s story for the first time.

Those memories do more than record Char’s life with CPOF.

They record the Foundation becoming what it is today.

Becoming CPOF’s Ambassador

In the summer of 2023, Char transitioned from her office responsibilities into the role of CPOF Ambassador.

The change allowed her to step away from the daily administrative work she had carried for decades while remaining connected to the organization she helped build.

The title is fitting.

An ambassador represents not only an organization’s programs, but its values, relationships and history.

Char carries all three.

She remembers the Foundation before it had nationwide recognition.

She knows what it took to gain the first supporting members.

She remembers the founders not as names in an article, but as people gathered around a table.

She understands why relationships with correctional agencies, representatives and families must be protected.

And she knows that “Taking Care of Our Own” is not simply CPOF’s motto.

It is a standard people must choose to live.

The First Representative Who Built More Representatives

Today, CPOF representatives and volunteers serve correctional professionals throughout the country.

They visit academies.

Attend shift changes.

Present assistance checks.

Support families.

Build relationships with institutional leadership.

Recruit members.

Represent CPOF at memorials, conferences and community events.

Every one of those roles carries part of the path Char created.

Technology changed the work.

Paper maps gave way to MapQuest, GPS and smartphones.

Handwritten requests became emails.

Printed photographs became digital galleries and social media.

But the purpose remained the same.

Reach correctional professionals.

Explain the mission.

Build trust.

Find the people who need help.

Strengthen the supporting membership that makes assistance possible.

And make certain the next family is not left alone.

Char understood that work before CPOF had a national network to perform it.

Then she built the network.

A Legacy That Cannot Be Separated From CPOF

Today, we recognize Charleene “Char” Corby:

The woman who opened her kitchen and garage to CPOF’s founders.

A wife and mother whose family made the Foundation a shared commitment.

CPOF’s first representative.

A road warrior who traveled before sunrise with paper maps, coffee and a mission.

A partner to Barbara Burchfield in carrying CPOF’s story into correctional institutions.

A national advocate who built relationships from California to New York and beyond.

A leader who recruited and trained representatives throughout the country.

A Chief Administrative Officer who helped turn the founders’ promise into daily action.

A woman who welcomed families to PROJECT and helped generations feel that they belonged.

A mentor who recognized future leaders and invited them to serve.

A widow and mother who endured profound loss while remaining part of the family she helped create.

And an Ambassador whose living memory connects CPOF’s earliest days to its future.

Char was never simply standing beside the Foundation’s history.

She was making it.

Larry and the other founders envisioned an organization that would take care of correctional families.

Char helped give that organization the people, members, relationships and daily structure it needed to keep the promise.

Her legacy is present every time a representative walks into an institution.

Every time a cadet becomes a member.

Every time a surviving family returns to PROJECT.

Every time someone answers a call and says, “You are not alone.”

For nearly four decades, Char did not merely tell people what “Taking Care of Our Own” meant.

She showed them.

If Char visited your institution, welcomed you to PROJECT, recruited you as a member or representative, worked beside you through CPOF, or became part of your family’s story, we invite you to share your photographs and memories. Every story will help preserve the living legacy of a woman who helped transform five officers’ vision into a national correctional family.