Reinventing a career: LeVar Burton offers lessons in adaptability

Actor, director, author LeVar Burton discussing storytelling, diversity, adaptation and more at the 2022 BenefitsPRO Broker Expo.

Like many in the employee benefits world who have had to adapt and change, actor and director LeVar Burton has successfully reinvented himself in a career spanning nearly 50 years.

When he walked on stage for his keynote talk on at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo, the audience of brokers and advisors gave him a standing ovation. Some no doubt remembered him from his role as the African slave Kunta Kinte in the groundbreaking 1970s series Roots.  Others knew him from his role as the blind crewperson Geordi La Forge in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. And a large swath of the audience remembered him from their childhood spent watching his PBS kids show, Reading Rainbow, which ran for over 23 years.