Boomers find second career in midlife

Data from a recent government study show that baby boomers are expecting to spend more of their lives working, possibly reversing a century-long trend toward earlier retirement.

In addition to being able to work longer, baby boomers – usually defined as those born from 1946 to 1964 – are also staying on the job longer because they need to. With greater life expectancies, many middle-aged workers today are concerned they may have too little savings set aside to afford retirement.

One expert says data she compiled for a book on the subject showed that 35 percent of boomers expected to work past age 70.

Facing longer years in the workforce, many baby boomers are looking for meaning in their remaining decades of productivity, says Gail Geary, author of the “Over-40 Job Search Guide,” published by JIST Works.

“Statistically, if people are going to be working that long … (they) want to do something that they enjoy,” says Geary, an Atlanta-based career counselor.

For many, that means changing jobs or employers or starting their own businesses in their 50s and 60s, ages at which boomers’ parents and grandparents were eyeing retirement – not beginning careers anew.

Andy Johnson decided last year to leave a cushy job as brand director with Diageo PLC and open his own liquor store – Blue Dog Wines & Spirits – in Pelham.

“I really just wanted to break away and try something new,” Johnson said. At the time, Johnson was 53, and the Pelham resident got the sense that it was “do or die” time.

“It seemed like the best opportunity for me to start my own business would be at this age, and not wait any longer,” he said.

Like many boomers, Johnson still had financial obligations, including a mortgage and college tuition for three children.

So rather than taking out a loan to finance his business, Johnson tapped his retirement savings. Having built up a nest egg in his retirement plan over nearly 30 years at Diageo, Johnson learned that he could use his 401(k) to invest in his own business, a strategy he learned in a creative-financing component of an entrepreneurship course he took.

Johnson says one of the biggest impediments to starting his own business was battling the inertia of staying in a comfortable job that offers significant benefits.

Susan Rubin knows something about that, having given up a profitable law practice in White Plains five years ago after her love for yoga turned into a desire to start her own business, Sage Yoga, which is hosted at The Gym in Armonk.

As a yoga instructor and business owner, Rubin believes she is able to help people in a more unique way than she was as a transactional lawyer.

And because she herself is less stressed, Rubin, 48, believes she will probably work longer than if she had stayed an attorney.

“The change feels like a brand new life,” she says.

A new life was something Stephanie Garry was searching for after the former full-time actress had difficulty finding work after her union went on strike in 2000.

“After walking a picket line for six months, it was very hard to get my career jump-started again,” the Chappaqua resident says.

So Garry, 53, revamped her resume, incorporating skills she gained volunteering at her Bedford Corners synagogue and the Chappaqua PTA, and submitted it to the UJA-Federation of New York, a Jewish social-service organization.

That proposal led to a job offer at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, a nonprofit funeral home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The chapel’s director of community relations for the last five years, Garry helps get the word out about the chapel and its services. One way she has done that is through a media campaign that she developed and lends her voice to.

It includes on-air spots for radio, public-radio sponsorships and candle-lighting announcements on 1010 WINS radio.

“I got incredibly lucky because the job spoke to a lot of the skills I already had” and allowed her to give back, Garry says. As workers age, she says, they’re better able to tap into things they’re good at and interested in.

At 50, Carolyn Calabria believes her 21-year career on Wall Street will be a big help in running her own business, which she hopes to open this fall in Pomona, where she also lives.

Calabria’s experiences include having escaped the downing of the World Trade Center towers, where she once worked, when the buildings were attacked in 2001.

“It was a big reason I decided to do this,” Calabria says. “It woke me up. Running down the street for your life in a cloud of dust is something that I never thought I’d experience in my life.”

Calabria has purchased a franchise in the Entrée Vous chain of meal-preparation businesses, financing it with savings she’d accumulated through her years of work, she says.

Calabria chose to invest in a franchise rather than starting her own business since franchises have a proven business model, she says.

With the aid of the Entrepreneur’s Source, a Mamaroneck-based consulting firm that helps people determine whether business ownership is right for them, Calabria set her sights on Entrée Vous in part because she enjoys cooking and eating.

Calabria hopes that by opening her business she can help Rocklanders eat more nutritiously.

“I think we should service our communities,” she says.

The desire to give back is integral to boomers’ career choices as they age, says Lizanne Fiorentino, a Suffern-based career coach.

Part of what is feeding boomers’ desire to have jobs that are more meaningful is the ease with which they can start their own businesses.

Decades ago it was so much harder to be an entrepreneur, Fiorentino says. While not easy, starting one’s own business is easier and more accepted today.

“Twenty years ago, if somebody said: ‘Well, I’m leaving Wall Street to go make muffins,’ they would look at you like you lost your mind,” she says.

Today, however, boomers looking to leave the rat race and make not just muffins but organic muffins are viewed as cool.

“There’s not the stigma of stepping out of that corporate structure,” Fiorentino says. “We’re not the assembly line anymore.”

Similar Posts:

• Top 5 Employment Trends for 2012
• Staying Motivated at a Dead-End Job
• Getting A Recommendation From A Past Employer
• Using LunchMeet to Advance Your Career
• Why The Workplace Office Is Becoming Arbitrary