Content area
Full text
With the first wave of baby boomers hitting 60, many are asking: What's next?
For some, retirement is a viable option; for others it is not. Then, there are those who could retire but choose to begin again in a new career, using skills gained from experience and finding a more fulfilling way to spend their time or pursuing opportunities they previously did not have.
Greg Northrup's new position of acting director of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance, following his 2004 retirement as the director of economic development at Consumers Energy, is a way for him to stay youthful and keep his mind active. After retiring at the age of 58, he said he felt he was too young to stop working.
"I don't see myself ever retiring," he said. "I can't play that much golf."
Though his position is temporary, Northrup said he hopes it will become permanent.
"I hope things are working out pretty well for us at West Michigan Strategic Alliance," he said of the regional development organization.
Bobbie Gaunt, the former president and CEO of Ford Motor Co. of Canada, said she decided to join the boards of a few companies in order keep herself stimulated following retirement in 2000 at the age of 53. After a few years, she decided to chair the board of the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, bringing the organization from the verge of bankruptcy into a thriving center and a Cool Cities site.
Gaunt said it was her husband who convinced her to chair the board by saying: "if you choose not to do this and you know you can, then you shouldn't complain anymore about a local theater and art center."
While she respects and loves the arts, Gaunt said she is not an artist herself and insisted on creating a board that had a balance of businessoriented people and artists. She admitted that chairing the board was like a full-time job until recently when they were able to hire a parttime executive director.
As the executive director of West Michigan Heart for 12 years, Grace Shearer knew what it was like to work long hours. Now a consultant for The Entrepreneur's Source, a business and franchise consulting organization, Shearer said she still works...