NFIB

Silver Entrepreneurs  
03/ 27/ 2002

Starting over or just starting up isn't only for the young, as these sterling silver-haired entrepreneuers
by Alan Naditz
Once upon a time, retirement meant putting away the shovel or closing the desk drawer for good. After 20, 30, 40 years or more on the job, it was time to take a break for the rest of your life and enjoy yourself.

The concept hasn't changed-people are still retiring from their jobs. But instead of hitting the golf course or polishing the rocking chair, a growing number of today's seniors are launching new businesses for a second round in the working world.

An NFIB study shows that seniors age 60 or older started a total of 143,000 businesses in 1998, about a quarter as many as started by working peers half their age. Expectations are that the number of senior start-ups will grow: Census Bureau projections show almost half of Americans will be age 50 or older by 2010.

These "old" folks, analysts say, will cling to their youth as long as they can by remaining active, staying healthy and doing what they did when they were "kids"-including working full time. Eighty percent of respondents in a 1998 American Association of Retired Persons survey of Baby Boomers said they planned to work beyond retirement age (65). Seventeen percent of those added that they wanted to own their own businesses.

Mark Dollinger, a business professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., offers three reasons for older Americans' re-entry into the workforce. First, "as life span increases, there are more once-young entrepreneurs suddenly finding themselves as older entrepreneurs," Dollinger says.

Second, many healthy and financially strong managers are pursuing second careers because they are tired of working for someone else. And many of these ex-managers are turning their hobbies into full-time businesses, pursuing their passion for a profit.

Here's how and why a handful of these "silver entrepreneurs" came out of retirement and launched new careers at "half-life" or beyond.

Through the Cooking Flask

If 77-year-old Poppy Bridger cut her finger in her chemistry lab, she'd probably bleed sulfuric acid. She's been in the business so long, chemistry is more than a job. It's her life, and her legacy. One of the nation's first female chemists and assayers, Bridger spent 45 years in commercial labs, including working with NASA in the early days of the space program. But in 1992, at age 69, she called it quits, partly due to an anxious employer and also to care for her ailing mother.

Three years later, she was using her $250,000 nest egg to buy Anaheim Test Laboratories in Santa Ana, Calif.

Why? She was bored-after her mother's death, she visited friends, crocheted and kept an immaculate house. "But that's not me," she says. "I had worked all my life."

Bridger's daughter and grandson are also employed at the lab, and her son-a fellow chemist-is a consultant. It may be a family affair, but "business is business, and family is family," she says. "They all know they have to follow my instructions and procedures when working; they know I'm the one who's most knowledgeable."

That life-long knowledge has made her popular locally. Jobs range from a bakery owner wanting to know why sugar crystallizes in her pastries to builders bringing in bags of gravel and soil for sulfate content analysis to collectors bringing in their metallic wares for authenticity testing.

"You never know what's going to come through that door," Bridger says. "Just when I think I've seen it all, something surprises me."

She loves her work to the point that she can't envision not doing it. But she knows that day will come. "I plan to do it as long as my health holds up," Bridger says. "One day, I want my children to be able to run the business, maybe in another five years. Then I get to retire again for as long as I can stand it."

The Old Man Down the Upload

Look at the staff at Parker Solutions.com and you'll probably get this picture: a half-dozen Gen-Xers (under age 30) play on their computers all day, running a consulting firm that provides customers with information on how to make money using the Internet. And one old guy, wandering through the place, who might be the janitor.

You're half right. The elder gentleman, however, is no janitor-he's the owner and company president. But Bob Parker is used to the misidentification.

"I do get a lot of the 'grandpa' and 'old geezer' jokes," says Parker, who launched the Ames, Iowa firm in 1998 when he was 63. "You just don't find Internet expertise among older people. Some people find it unusual to see me here."

But age has its benefits. Many of Parker Solutions.com's customers are from Parker's generation and want to learn how the Web works. "I offer business experience that the younger guys here can't," Parker says. "Business owners and managers listen to me when I talk to them about using the Internet, because they see my gray hair and know I comprehend their situation and technological knowledge needs."

Parker's friends and family had no trouble comprehending why this former Iowa State University business professor took an early retirement and $150,000 of his own money to start Parker Solutions.com, which is found at http://www.parkersolutions.com.

"Some people who didn't know me well didn't understand the decision-they thought I should have stuck it out for a couple more years and retired more comfortably," he says. "But I always have to do something."

Parker became interested in the Web during an Internet World conference in 1995. He became more involved over the next few years through work at the college and Des Moine's Small Business Development Center.

"I saw tremendous potential in the Web," he says. "As time went on, I saw more of a need to help small and medium-sized businesses take advantage of all the opportunities the Internet presented."

Today the company, with annual sales of $500,000, presents 65-year-old Parker with a healthy return. He sees himself at the helm for at least another decade.

"Who knows?" he says. "This job has really rejuvenated me. If you can find something that gives you livelihood, that you enjoy doing, why stop doing it?"

A Power-Full Gamble

You really have to believe in a business idea when you crunch a few numbers and discover it'll be at least three years before your new company can even attempt its first sale. Imagine Scott Balmer's shock as he watched that three-year estimate turn into 12 years of research and development for his Tamarac, Fla., firm Power Save International.

"It went on much longer than anticipated," says Balmer, now 75. His company builds and sells small electric cogenerating units. "It put us in some very severe financial straits, but we were in too far to get out. The only way to salvage things was to keep doing it until we were done."

Balmer, who at age 63 planned to spend $200,000 and three years developing a new turbine generator to supply extra power to smaller businesses, ended up sinking $1 million into his work from 1988 to 2000. He mortgaged his house, cashed in his life insurance and drained his savings, but refused to quit.

"If you've been reasonably successful in life, you take a calculated risk based on your experience," he says. "If your past experience has been one where you're successful doing anything you do, you don't think too much about failure."

And Balmer had been successful, working in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) business for 35 years. But as retirement loomed in the late 1980s, he discovered cogeneration, a new technology in which two forms of energy are derived from one unit.

"I saw it was the wave of the future," Balmer says. "At that time, it wasn't very popular. But today, companies spend a tremendous amount on energy. With this technology, we can help them avoid brownouts."

So Balmer gambled, and appears to have won. He says he's looking forward to seeing his five-employee company move into the black starting this year. He plans to remain company chairman for one or two more years, then step down and stay as a consultant. "I'll probably always be involved in the company as long as I'm physically and mentally able," Balmer says.

Balmer has a good role model: a fellow member of the HVAC industry recently died at 102. "He was working until the day he died," Balmer says. "Proof that if you take care of yourself, there's no reason you can't do something as long as you want."

It's Miller Time

In late 1994, Barbara Miller had had enough. After 32 years at an Amarillo, Texas paper manufacturing company, she gave the owners what they apparently wanted: she quit.

"Everything was great there until the founder died," says Miller, who was 62 when she walked. "Then the heirs and I kept getting further and further apart in our thinking. Finally, I was out of there."

But Miller's voyage into early retirement lasted only a few hours. As she cleaned out her desk, 15 colleagues approached her about starting her own rival company. "The 16 of us got together that afternoon," she recalls. "I was the only one with enough money to start up a company, so we kind of went from there."

Miller invested $300,000 of her savings and went to work. On Jan. 1, 1995, Miller Paper Co. opened across town from her ex-employer, who promptly took her to court. "We opened up with a bare floor and a lawsuit," Miller jokes.

Although some of Miller's now employees had signed non-compete clauses with their old firm, Miller prevailed. "On April 28, we were turned free to do what we wanted to do," she says.

Being the new kid on the block-and an older kid at that-wasn't as bad as expected, Miller notes. The salespeople who followed her had contacts and helped the company hit the ground running. Longtime association also helped. "Some of us had been together 30 years," Miller says. "I knew from as long as I'd worked with them that they were good people and good workers."

Maybe that's one reason why her age, 67, hasn't been an issue. "It's terrific being in charge," she says. "I've had no worries about people doing what they were supposed to do to keep the company going, and they don't worry about me. We just concentrate on taking care of business."

And business is being taken care of. The company's 1999 sales topped $7 million, about double what her ex-employer made that year. Miller Paper now employs 30 full-time personnel, including 14 of the 15 who started up the company with Miller in 1995.How much longer will Miller stay on board? "If you could tell me what day the good Lord's going to call me to his place, I can tell you when I'm going to retire."

Work for the second half of life

Resources to help you start your own business after retirement

Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) is a group of retired experienced volunteers who provide training and one-on-one counseling at no charge. Go to http://www.score.org, or call 1-800-634-0245.

Small Business Development Centers are partners with the Small Business Administration. They are located in every state, usually affiliated with a university or college, and provide training, counseling, research and other specialized assistance.

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This article originally appeared in the January/February 2001 issue of MyBusiness Magazine, NFIB's member magazine.

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