Second Act Stories

For today's episode, I traveled to Frisco, Texas and met with Steve Paz. Since he was a boy, Steve always wanted to be a police officer and he got his chance initially as a military police officer in the Marines. He then spent twelve years with the Dallas Police Department, one of the finest police forces in the country. He was on the front lines of crack cocaine epidemic of the 1990s and encounte...

This episode takes us to the United Kingdom for an interview with Lizzie Fouracre, a 33-year-old Brit with a sparking personality. Lizzie was living the dream helping to manage a fast-growing technology company in London started by her brother Tim. And while the pace of a technology start-up was exhilarating, over time she found herself wanting more from life. So she quit, packed up a tent and sle...

A force of nature."  That's how one person described Judy Cockerton.   Judy's life changed dramatically when she became a foster parent at the age of 48. She and her husband Arthur took on the responsibility of raising two sisters aged five months and seventeen months – along with their own two kids who were 12 and 18 at the time. And for the first time she saw how flawed the child welfare system...

T'au Pupu'a came to the United States from Kingdom of Tonga at the age of five. He grew up in a home of modest means in Salt Lake City, Utah and started playing football at the age of ten. Legendary football coach Bill Belichick discovered him while he was playing for Weber State University and he joined the Cleveland Browns as a defensive lineman. But in his second season, a nasty injury ended hi...

Joe Tedino had a long career as a journalist and public relations executive. But tennis was always his passion. So when he finally opted to retire from a senior position with Boeing, he decided to invest the time to get certified as a tennis professional. And that helped him land a position as Assistant Coach at St. Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit high school in the heart of Chicago. He's been wor...

Today's episode takes place at the Lincoln Middle School in Rockford, Illinois. I spent the morning here with Arnie Rosen, a retired doctor, and 80+ seventh and eighth graders in the school's band room. Dr. Rosen loved his 27-year career as a gastroenterologist in this Midwestern community. But when he finally retired two years ago he had a plan for what he wanted to do. He wanted to become a "ban...

In this episode, we meet an incredible man named Jim Farrin. After a highly successful career as a globe-trotting, corporate executive, Jim helped start an organization called The Petey Greene Program. In a nutshell, the program brings volunteer students from top colleges like Harvard, Brown, University of Pennsylvania and Columbia into prisons to serve as tutors. They help prisoners get a high sc...

Career expert Jeri Sedlar wrote "Don't Retire, Rewire!" back in 2002 with her business partner and husband Rick Miners. They were largely responsible for blowing the lid off our traditional view of American life -- the "education first" – "work career second" – "retirement third" phasing. In August 2018, they came out with a third edition of "Don't Retire, Rewire!" based on new research and interv...

When I first heard Chris Donovan's story I thought to myself, I don't care what it takes. I have to interview this man. It took several months and a dozen or so email exchanges. But last month, I traveled to Massachusetts with only one thing in mind: interview the telephone repairman who is now focused solely on the one thing he always wanted to do in life: design women's shoes. Since his junior y...

While working as the Director of Social Justice at St. Stephen's Church in Minneapolis, Cathy Heying observed a continuing problem among the working poor in the church's neighborhood: A poor person's car would break down and they would not have the money to repair it; Lacking dependable transportation, he/she would be unable to get to work and lose their job; Unable to pay the rent, they would bec...

Nancy Collamer is the author of Second Act Careers: 50 Ways to Profit From Your Passions During Semi-Retirement. She is a recognized expert on career change and writes a monthly blog for the PBS site NextAvenue.org. Our interview with Nancy focuses on an especially, powerful resource from her website (www.mylifestylecareer.com). "25 Questions to Help You Identify Your Ideal Second Act" details a s...

Anita Kellman is a little like Superman. During the day, she is a quiet, mild-mannered patient navigator at the office of a breast cancer oncologist. But on Tuesday afternoons at 5:30 pm and Saturday mornings at 8:00 am, she is transformed into "Sarge" – a tough Navy Seal drill instructor who barks orders and leads cancer patients and cancer survivors through an hour-long "Beat Cancer Boot Camp" i...

Terry is a compulsive gambler who hit "rock bottom" at the age of 30 when he lost nearly $1 million in a 36-hour period in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. But he got himself into rehab, shifted gears from gambling to running and got his life together. This Fall he will run his 16 th consecutive New York City Marathon. Terry's love of running extends into his new position/career as Executive Director...

From the age of eight, Buddy Rizer wanted to be in radio. He landed his first job at the age of fifteen and rose up through the ranks to actually owning his own radio station in his early 40s. But like many other industries, radio changed. "Deregulation" not "video" killed the radio star (to amend the 1979 hit song by the Buggles). And it sent Buddy on a completely different path into the world of...

Eva Levias Andino is a big personality with a compelling back story. She grew up in Cuba and proudly counts herself as a 9 th generation Cuban. But at the age of 17 years old she left Cuba with her mother. She married and raised four children living in Puerto Rico and California before settling in Miami, Florida. Her life changed dramatically when her 20-year-old son Paolo invited her to lunch and...

In this episode, we spend time with Mark Miller, a veteran journalist who has covered the retirement beat for a dozen years.  Today, we're talking with him about his new book "Jolt: Stories of Trauma and Transformation." The book tells the stories of people have experienced traumatic events -- the loss of a child, a natural disaster, a life-threatening accident or illness, financial ruin or a terr...

In December 2009, Paul Tasner walked into a conference room and was let go from his position as the Senior Director of Operations of a San Francisco-based manufacturing firm. He was 64 years old. He met his wife Barbara and another couple for  dinner that evening and proceeded to get "silly drunk." He wasn't ready for retirement. So two years later, he started Pulpworks, a company that designs and...

Over the course of a 40+ year legal career, Richard Turner served as Governor Ronald Reagan's personal attorney and then as a high-powered trial lawyer. But at the age of 60, he had a series of epiphanies during a month-long sabbatical wandering around the Western United States. And he eventually left the bar and became a nature photographer. And a pretty successful one at that. DOWNLOAD EPISODE T...

Kevin Butler had a dazzling football career that began at the University of Georgia. He then played for 13 seasons as a place kicker in the NFL from 1985-1998. In his rookie season, he was part of Chicago Bears that won Super Bowl XX. But he always regretted not graduating from the university. And he told his three children, that he'd get his degree "when you are all done." On May 5, 2018, some 33...

Sharon Sevrens had a thriving career as an investment banker. But when she and her husband experienced September 11 th from their apartment building just a block and a half from the World Trade Center, she knew it was time for a change. Over time she had developed a passion for wine. So with no experience in retail sales or in the wine business, she purchased a liquor license from Whole Foods for...

Father James Martin is an American Jesuit priest who has written a dozen books including The New York Times best sellers "The Jesuit Guide to Almost Anything," "Building a Bridge" and "Jesus: A Pilgrimage." He's got a huge following on Facebook and Twitter and is frequently a religion expert for everyone from The New York Times to CNN to Comedy Central (where Stephen Colbert appointed him the offi...

For 40+ years, Judi Schindler worked in the field of public relations. For most of that time, she ran her own firm called Schindler Communications. According to Judi, it was "a hugely rewarding job." And she emerged as a pioneer among women entrepreneurs helping to establish a Chicago chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. But when she decided to retire, Judi went back to a...

This "Second Act" Story takes us to Rockford, Illinois, a city of about 150,000 people in Northern Illinois. We'll meet a successful entrepreneur and hometown hero named James Purifoy. He has built an incredible "burger joint" named "Fifteenth and Chris" that has the most creative and delicious hamburgers that you've ever tasted. Every day a line starts forming an hour before he opens his doors. P...

Trained as a chemist but working as an executive recruiter, Art Schill decided he wanted to try his hand at stand-up comedy -- at the age of 81. And it turns out, he's really good at it. Less than a year after taking comedy classes near his home in Long Island, New York, Art has played a range of top comedy clubs including Carolines, Dangerfields, Mohegan Sun and the Broadway Comedy Club. In a way...

On this episode, we spend time with Marci Alboher, the author of The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life . She also is a Vice President at Encore.org, a nonprofit focused on helping people pursue second acts for the greater good. Marci offers her thinking on the best practices in transitioning to a second act. And she outlines common traits shar...