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April 2, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

Career change leads to flexibility, less stress

A seven-month illness knocked Brace Cooper out of the printing-press sales business in which he’d spent most of his career. As he recovered, he attended job-networking meetings without knowing exactly what he was seeking.

“If I could have continued to be a senior vice president selling heavy machinery around the world from St. Louis, I would have done that,” said Cooper, 64, who lives in the St. Louis, Mo., suburb of Weldon Spring.

“I don’t think that was an option … It just wasn’t. If you’re out there looking for a job, and you’re 60 years old, your options are limited,” Cooper said. His options were further limited because he didn’t want to move.

“For me, it was a change that I was sort of forced into,” he said.

Thanks to his networking efforts in the fall of 2007, he met someone [Read more…]

March 29, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

After seven career changes, he’s a professional

By his count, Marc Miller has changed careers seven times, and he figures he’s got plenty of advice to share with others who are thinking about changing careers later in life.

That’s how he arrived at his current occupation, “career design specialist.” The Austin, Texas, resident founded Career Pivot early in 2011 to help Baby Boomers take a planned approach to career changes.

A conversation with Miller is an insightful, winding trip that weaves his own experiences with career advice and a bit of philosophy about Baby Boomers, who are now somewhere between 48 and 66 years old.

“One of the things that’s very typical of our generation, we made changes when opportunities appeared. Very rarely did we, as a generation, create our own opportunities. We as a generation were raised by our parents to be employees, to go work for father-like, paternal organizations that would take care of us.” That model doesn’t work anymore, he said.

“As a result, most of us are used to looking for opportunities rather than making opportunities.”

Miller, now in his mid-50s, started his own career transformation after [Read more…]

March 23, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

Volunteering led to Canadian’s career change

During a nearly 30-year career working in customs brokerage houses, Sandie Seymour often found herself helping co-workers and friends prepare their resumes and find new jobs.

Now, at age 59, the Surrey, British Columbia, resident has transformed that occasional avocation into her full-time work by helping Canadian immigrants find jobs and adjust to their new homes. Best of all, Sandie said, “I love it. I wish I’d done it earlier.”

Sandie started re-orienting herself toward a career change in 2002 and 2003. She worked for her husband in a customs brokerage business, and “things weren’t going so well, relationship-wise,” she said. She took some time off and went through a career exploration course, which concluded that she was best suited to employment counseling or religious work. [Read more…]

March 12, 2012 by Mark Whittaker

77-year-old pastor: ‘Follow your dream’

She was 57, and after 20 years as an administrative assistant and manager for Pittsburgh environmental engineering firms, Sylvia J. Baker felt the call to do something else with her life.

Another 20 years has passed, and Sylvia — the Rev. Sylvia, actually — has been pastor of the Assembly of God Church in tiny Shanksville, Pa., since 1999. The fact that she describes her career transformation as “easy to do” makes it no less remarkable.

Although she had spent many years as an active church member, Sunday school teacher and lay leader, “I decided that I knew there was something else that God wanted me to do.” So she began taking distance education courses to become licensed as an Assemblies of God pastor. [Read more…]

Career change leads to flexibility, less stress

After seven career changes, he’s a professional

Volunteering led to Canadian’s career change

77-year-old pastor: ‘Follow your dream’

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