Life expectancies are longer than ever, and many people over the age of 55 are taking full advantage of their golden years in ways their predecessors could only dream about.
Some retire from 30-year careers and start again from the bottom in a different industry. Some rediscover what they have fun doing and hook up with a business that is focused on that same purpose. Some just choose to keep working at their original job because they enjoy it so much.
The baby boomers are redefining retirement.
“We went to my husband’s class reunion one year, and everyone was retired but us,” said Carol Schneider, chief executive officer of Seek Careers/ Staffing Inc., based in Grafton. “Five years later, we went to the next reunion, and everyone was back to work because they were too young to retire and they were bored, or because they did not have sufficient money to last them through what might be very old age.”
Schneider is 70 years old and does not envision retiring anytime soon.
“I have not decided to retire, because I can’t imagine what I would do,” Schneider said. “I am consumed by the business, and I love what I do so much that there is not much point to doing anything else.”
However, Schneider has started the transition of her company’s ownership. Her son, Joel, who serves as president of Seek, has taken over more responsibility of the daily operations of the business while Schneider has taken a guidance and leadership role in the background. Seek also recently established an advisory team.
Schneider says not all of her husband’s old classmates were back in full-time positions or in careers necessarily, but they were working. One of her friends is a bartender who previously had a long career as a high-ranking sales person for a distribution company.
Some older workers drive buses. Just because they have jobs instead of careers does not mean they are not enjoying themselves, she said.
“I know a former district attorney in a Wisconsin county who drives a flatbed truck and delivers big landscaping stones,” Schneider said.
At the age of 52, Brian Warnecke took an early retirement package from SBC Wisconsin (now AT&T Wisconsin) in 2000. He had worked in the sales and marketing side of telecommunications for 21 years.
“I was at a point in my life where I had gone through so many changes, corporate restructures, that I started wondering if I wanted to go through it one more time,” Warnecke said. “I would have had to go where the work was, which was in San Antonio, Texas, and I did not want to pull up my roots and move to Texas. So I saw it as an opportunity to make a change and do something else.”
Warnecke decided to take advantage of the extra time on his hands by doing volunteer work. He said the nonprofit sector was a good fit for him, because he could use his marketing and communications skills, but in completely different ways.
Today, he is the assistant director of Interfaith Employment Services, a division of Interfaith Older Adult Programs in Milwaukee. Interfaith is engaging the community in a series of discussions about the impact of the aging workforce.
In an opposite situation, Tom Rave worked for Firstar Bank and its predecessors for 27 years. He left the company in 1996 and accepted a severance package.
After a short time, Rave went to work for San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. in its Milwaukee office, but he wanted to be at a company that was locally based, locally focused and without the bureaucracy.
So, he joined Tri City National Bank in Oak Creek, where he is a vice president.
Rave, now 61, had invested in 401(k) programs and was fortunate that after leaving Firstar he did not need to work for the money. Instead, Rave said he wanted to work because he was good at it and because he liked it and wanted to continue to make contributions to a company.
“I look at myself, and I say, ‘My dad died at 83. My mom died at 93. I figure I will probably live until I am 88,'” Rave said. “That is 27 more years, which is a long time. I am interested in doing a lot more things.”
When Sister Joel Read retired from her position as president of Alverno College in 2003, she saw it as more of an opportunity for the betterment of the school than for her to pursue other interests.
“It is important when you have been the top administrator that when you leave, you leave so a new leadership group can come in and give the college new breathing space,” Read said. “In business, in anything, it is important to let change happen.”
Now in her 80s, Read still keeps up a lifestyle pace that many executives would envy.
She is the chair of the education committee for the Greater Milwaukee Committee, where she was given the charge to provide leadership in proactive public policy. She also serves on a bank board and a school board and is involved with several nonprofit organizations, in addition to serving as a mentor.
“I did not retire for leisure. I retired to stay involved, and I think that is what people want,” Read said. “Why work is such a driving force in people’s lives is because it keeps them connected to the community. I intended to leave (Alverno) because I thought I had been there long enough.”
John Lauber, president of Milwaukee-based LauberCFOs, is in his 20th year of offering financial services. Small and medium-sized businesses hire LauberCFOs for part-time chief financial officer-type services. The CFOs spend one day per week with the client and help guide the client’s business in the direction so one day the client will be able to afford its own CFO.
The people who work for LauberCFOs do so because they want to continue to be CFOs without the 65-hour work week and large responsibilities, Lauber said. CFOs who work for Lauber can choose how often they want to work, which will dictate the number of clients they have.
Lauber’s employees each have at least 20 years of experience as full-time CFOs. Lauber said his company is a perfect match for growing businesses and CFOs who are looking to slow down.
“The small-business owner not only gets strong financial leadership but someone who understands and has empathy in the role of CFO of a business,” Lauber said. “Paychecks are not the driving force (for CFOs), but mental stimulation (is). To work three days a week with three companies gives them mental stimulation and keeps them current on the business world. It keeps them active and sharp.”
At a recent holiday party Seek threw, Schneider was speaking with a new sales representative who revealed she was 65 years old.
“We don’t pay attention to how old people are, but if they can do the job,” Schneider said. “She loves what she does, and I said, ‘I get that part, but how do you have energy to jump in and out of the car?'”
