Stephen Sevigny, a 50-year-old Ormond Beach radiologist, credits a particular public school with helping him climb from humble origins. In this week's Florida Political Profile, the Democrat running for Congress talks about life with his wife, Gina, a dermatologist, and three children, Drew, Elizabeth and Kate, and what motivated him to run.
Q: Tell me about your parents, when were you born?
Sevigny: Born in Providence, Rhode Island, I was the fourth of four children. In 1970, thereabouts, we moved to New Hampshire. … (When) I was about 8 years old … my grandfather died in Fort Lauderdale. In those days, they would fly from Boston to Tampa, and then they took the old Tamiami Trail down to Miami. There was one town they drove by … right on the bay. It was an incredible town. (My parents) remembered this place, and so … the story they tell me, is they got out one of those old atlases, and they decided, oh, it’s Sarasota. So we packed up two U-hauls and we drove for two days, and we moved to Sarasota.
Q: Your parents started a trophy business?
Sevigny: My dad had no education, but he could sell. He could sell ice to Eskimos. The trophy shop at that time was owned by an old, retired couple who kind of pushed away more business than they took in. So (my family) bought that business. My mom did secretary school. She was very bright. She knew how to do computers and stuff, and so they started the trophy shop, just the two of them. … My parents worked incredibly hard.
Q: How was it that you ended up going to the University of Florida?
Sevigny: Pine View was a school (for gifted children) that was started in the early '70s. … What Sarasota did was they took all the best public teachers and they put them all on the same campus. They kind of identified kids in third grade. And you would start Pine View in fourth grade and work all the way through 12th grade. It was one of those things. I never realized it until the University of Florida what an incredible experience it was. When you went to Pine View, there was an assumption you were going to college.
Q: How did you end up in Ormond Beach?
Sevigny: We looked around and I interviewed in Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Sarasota, Melbourne, Cocoa, Vero. I interviewed across the state and the market was pretty good at that time. … We had a lot of options. At the time, I believed, and I still believe, that the Halifax Radiology Group is, if not the best in the state, one of the best in the state. … It was kind of a no-brainer that I would join this group. I was the first musculoskeletal radiologist to come to Volusia County in ’99. … And we loved the area.
Q: Tell me me a little bit about (your 18-year-old daughter) Elizabeth. I know she has Phelan …
Sevigny: Phelan-McDermid syndrome. Elizabeth was our second child, and she was born at Halifax (Health). And she had a little bit of trouble early on breathing. She was in NICU. So we brought her home, and then just never developed. Couldn’t sit up at 6 months. All the normal things that normal children do. She just wouldn’t do anything, and was just incredibly cranky. … (After years of searching for the reason, a doctor) discovered that she was missing a very small piece of her 22nd chromosome. And at the time it was called 22q13 deletion syndrome. Since then it’s been named for Dr. Katy Phelan and Heather McDermid, so it’s Phelan-McDermid syndrome.
Q: But this is very rare?
Sevigny: Very rare. So at the time she was diagnosed, she was between about 130 and 145 in the world. Subsequent to that, with better testing … there’s now about 1,500 kids in the world with it.
Q: Talk about what she’s able to do.
Sevigny: She can walk and she can hug and she can eat. But she doesn’t understand yes or no. She’s still in diapers. And when you don’t understand yes or no, you can’t train them to do anything. So she’s at home with us. She goes to Seabreeze. More for respite care. But they’re incredible people there.
Q: I wonder if you can talk a little bit about how her life has given you a different perspective?
Sevigny: I was recently talking with someone who handles one of the Democratic clubs, and she said, ‘How do you handle disappointment, or frustration … and when you have a special needs kid, losing an election, or running up against hard legislation, is not that big of a deal.
Q: Where does politics enter this equation? I don’t get the sense that you’re not somebody who’s been champing at the bit to run for Congress for a long time.
Sevigny: No. I’ve always loved public policy. I like to read. … I love to read studies about health care policy. And when you’re a radiologist and you see patients come in who are maybe facing a breast cancer diagnosis. ... God forbid, it’s positive and their deductible is a $7,000 deductible and (they worry more about that) than, ‘Oh, my God, you’re 52 years old and you’re facing a breast cancer diagnosis.’ And that’s wrong. ... We need to get health care for everyone. It’s a human right. … In America you should not have to decide between a car payment and a breast biopsy.
Q: It’s really quite something to go from being somebody sitting on the sidelines and reading and getting annoyed … and then actually raising your hand and saying, ‘I want to be a part of the solution,’ and ‘I want to be a candidate.’ I imagine that was quite a transformation for you.
Sevigny: It was. … When CHIP became a political football … CHIP is the Children’s Health Insurance Program … when you had disabled families across America … you have families going to bed in Oklahoma not knowing whether or not they’re going to have health insurance the next day. And that affected them every day. And that was one of the things my wife said, ‘You know what, we deserve better. Our families deserve better.’ And so at that point, that’s when she said let’s jump in the race.