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Tony Sharillo: The YMCA’s New Chief Executive Officer

Tony Sharillo, the new Chief Executive Officer of the Valley Shore YMCA, is not bald, despite his appearance. He has a secret: he shaves his head every other day.

“There is some hair, not a whole lot, but some,” he says.

It wasn’t always like that. He says he once had long blonde hair.

“That was before kids, in my early 30s,” he recalls.

Tony and his wife Erika now have two sons and a daughter ranging from a high schooler to a 5th-grader.

Tony took over his new job at the end of May last year when Chris Palatto, the former Chief Executive Officer, accepted a new position as CEO of the CT/RI Alliance of YMCAs. But Palatto left a tonsorial legacy. He was the one who first encouraged Tony to shave his head when both worked at the Waterbury YMCA.

Before taking over the top job, Tony was already working at the Valley Shore YMCA as the Director of Operations. Though he was a local candidate, the search for a new head was national, and Tony was unfazed by the scope.

“I encouraged a national search. I wanted to prove I earned the job, not just that I was the guy here,” he says.

As the new Chief Executive Officer, Tony will head the second phase of the YMCA’s capital campaign. The first phase included the construction of the state-of-the-art gym, the Brady Wellness Center. Tony says the second phase will encompass renovation of the locker rooms, as well as structural repairs to the building. The plans will require a fundraising campaign.

The YMCA is hiring a financial development officer and is also working with a firm specializing in fundraising techniques, but for Tony, professional guidance is not the only thing necessary.

“When you believe in what you do, that is the secret of raising money,” he says.

The goals that really interest him go beyond finance.

“We want to make the Valley Shore YMCA the premier non-profit along the Shoreline,” he says. “We want people who come here to feel cared for and welcomed. We want to respond to community needs.”

The Valley Shore YMCA serves residents in Essex, Chester, Deep River, Clinton, Old Saybrook, Westbrook, Old Lyme, Lyme, and East Lyme. One of the community needs revealed in a recent survey was for more middle and high school age programs after school that focus on the world beyond sports.

“Teens use the weight room, but we need more of other kinds of activities,” he says.

To that end, the YMCA is creating a new teen center.

During the COVID lockdown, the YMCA was shut for some 93 days. All memberships were canceled, so members were not charged for the downtime, and people had to rejoin rather than be automatically enrolled. Tony says membership has just reached pre-pandemic levels, and the building is busy throughout the day.

For many people, the YMCA has historically been all about swimming, but Tony says how people think of the YMCA depends on how they use it.

“If you swim, it can be about swimming, but if you use the gym, it is about exercise,” says Tony. “If you go to summer camp, it is a summer camp place. If you garden, it is a gardening place.”

The organization has a large vegetable garden that grows fresh produce in the summer that is donated to the Westbrook food pantry at St. Mark the Evangelist Church.

Tony, who grew up in Marlborough and graduated from Xavier High School in Middletown, got into YMCA work through a job as a summer camp counselor his senior year in high school. It was not supposed to be a career. He entered the University of Connecticut as an engineering major. One semester was enough to convince him it was the wrong field. He graduated with a degree in developmental psychology and the knowledge that helping children was what he really wanted to do.

He recalls his time as a counselor at a YMCA teen adventure program that included rock climbing and rafting. One of the campers was a young girl whom he describes as having had a terrible middle school experience. After the program was over, he got a letter from her mother saying the adventure camp experience had given her daughter the confidence she needed to make friends and create a better high school experience.

“I like to do things like that, good things,” Tony says.

Tony also is proud that when he was the director of Camp Ingersoll at the Middlesex YMCA with a staff of six people, he was asked to officiate at the weddings of four of them.

“I couldn’t have had that opportunity in another job. I will be part of their lives forever,” he says.

Tony works out, though he says the longest 30 feet in his life is the distance from his office to the gym. He exercises in the afternoon and says he sometimes feels guilty about taking up the space in the gym.

He has coached the teams of his three children, all active in sports, though now he has cut back a bit.

“It’s nice to sit in the stands and watch the game,” he admits.

Tony says new job at the Valley Shore YMCA represents the culmination of over 20 years working in various YMCA positions in Connecticut.

“This is where I want to be,” he says. “For me, this is the be-all and end-all.”

For more information on the Valley Shore YMCA, visit vsymca.org.