Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job (28 page)

The Great Recession took a toll on Badi Foster’s retirement savings when the endowment of the Washington, DC–based philanthropy he worked for was wiped out, taking his retirement account with it. His multifaceted career with international overtones and stints in higher education had culminated in a decade at the helm of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. When he turned seventy, Badi took emeritus status at the fund. He continues there part time because he is committed to the fund’s mission—fundamental social change through education and service—and also does consulting.

Profile: Badi G. Foster

The first thing Badi Foster told me was, “Barack Obama isn’t the only person who grew up with a funny name. Mine is pronounced Buh dee.’” He went on to explain, “My parents were Bahá’is and they named me after a martyr of the faith. Bahá’i was founded in the mid-nineteenth century by Bahá u’lláh to spread a message of peace and unity. Our core belief says that all humanity is one family. In the world’s current state of moral collapse and strife, that offers a potent reminder.”
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Badi’s parents, an interracial couple, met through Bahá’i. When they were in college during the Depression, they were pained by the political and social ferment that beset blacks so harshly. A Louis Armstrong song invoking the burdens of skin color, “Oh, Lord! What did I do to be so black and blue?” spoke volumes to the activist couple. They were inspired by construction of a Bahá’i House of Worship north of downtown Chicago in Wilmette, Illinois, open to persons of all races and religions.
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In the late 1950s they decided to move their family from Chicago to Africa, believing that they could propagate their faith and lead exemplary lives there. Consequently, Badi went to high school in Tangier, Morocco, and learned to speak Moroccan Arabic, Spanish, and French. He returned to the States, earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Denver, followed by a master’s in politics from Princeton. He was awarded a series of fellowships and completed a doctorate in politics, again at Princeton.

Instead of aiming for advancement in the professoriate when he left Princeton—the “false gods” of perks and tenure were not for him—he embarked on a different sort of career in higher education. He led planning for a new college of public service at Rutgers University, and then accomplished the same thing at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He also lent his expertise to the Ford Foundation on higher education projects in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Tunisia. One of his mentors, Paul Ylvisaker, recruited Badi to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education where he spent several years in various teaching and administrative positions. In the 1980s and 1990s he ventured into the for-profit sector where he developed and implemented corporate education and training programs in the fields of health care and transportation. During this segment of his career, in 1990 he was tapped to chair the board of the National Institute of Literacy, a position requiring Senate confirmation. However, Badi was disillusioned by the many barriers in the business world to creating viable black-owned enterprises; he returned to higher education in 1998 as director of the Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University.

Badi has spent the past twelve years of his career as president and CEO of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a Washington, DC–based philanthropy that fosters equity and unity among diverse ethnic and racial groups while promoting the core value of education for human development as its primary mission. Phelps-Stokes claims to be America’s oldest continuously operating foundation serving the needs of African Americans, Native Americans, Africans in Africa, Afro Latinos in the Caribbean and South America, and the rural and urban poor. In his philanthropic work at Phelps-Stokes, Badi has found his true calling. “I work with enlightened people whose mission is educating
my people
. The fund resonates with my most cherished values: they all converge around fundamental social change through education and service performed on behalf of those who have been wronged.” To illustrate how he has clarified what this work means to him, Badi shares a metaphor about three paper cups. The first is the man, the second is his job, and the third is the organization. There are three questions to ask about each—What? For whom? Why? The three cups may or may not fit together or may be upside down, depending on the answers. For Badi the fit is perfect. “We tend to focus on the mind and the body, but nurturing the spirit creates energy, a special dimension that allows you to do extraordinary things.”

In 2012 when he was turning seventy, Badi took emeritus status at the fund. He continues there part time, consults for the governmental Department of Choco in Colombia part time, and intermittently studies his family’s history. “My grandmother’s grandmother was a slave. When I got into the dreadful history of slavery here in Loudoun County, Virginia, I developed what I call ‘PTSD slave syndrome’ that forced me to stop my research for a while.”

In addition to enjoying congruence or harmony among the personal, professional, and spiritual aspects of his life, Badi has another compelling reason for continuing to work—when the Great Recession wiped out the Phelps-Stokes Fund’s endowment, Badi lost the entire retirement account that he and his wife, Juanita, were counting on. Badi told me this with a remarkable degree of equanimity. I might have attributed his calmness regarding such a calamity to Badi’s faith had he not shared a part of his family’s history that had taught him a significant life lesson. Badi and Juanita were the proud parents of two sons, Nabil and Qasim, born six years apart in the 1970s. The younger boy, Qasim, had a peanut allergy which he and his family knew how to manage. However, at school Qasim was given something to eat that sent him into anaphylactic shock. School and emergency personnel failed to recognize the severity of the reaction and did not act in time to save the child. After Badi and Juanita buried their nine-year-old son in 1986, nothing that life threw at them in subsequent years could compare in importance. Badi reflects somberly, “Qasim’s death put everything in perspective and was a catalyst for many things in our lives.” Then he adds on a lighter note, “Some good can come from such a horrible tragedy—we have not had a family argument since 1986!”

With age comes the possibility of losing dear friends and loved ones—painful losses that are hard on everyone. As spiritual leader Ram Dass says in his blog on
Conscious Aging
,
“Although relationships change in all stages of life, it often seems harder to find new connections to replace the ones we lose as we age.”
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Yet, only 12 percent of the men (and even fewer of the women) acknowledge such loss as a personal challenge or concern. The somewhat greater tendency for men to indicate this may merely be attributable to the male respondents being four years older on average than the females I surveyed—average age seventy for the men, average age sixty-six for the women—and thus even more apt to have experienced personal losses. A sixty-nine-year-old translator tells me that he is pained by his parents’ deaths. One older man is saddened by “the loss of contact with successfully launched adult children who live far away.” Still others (10 percent of the male respondents) are concerned about elderly parents or relatives or an infirm spouse in their care. Whether or not Ram Dass has credibility with men and women old enough to recall his earlier persona (Richard Alpert) and LSD, his recommendations for dealing with feelings of loneliness and isolation in the elder years make good sense. They range from caring for others to connecting in cyberspace and being
in community
in various ways and through various media. That is why “Doing unto Others” is an apt title for the next chapter.

9

Doing unto Others

You don’t stop running because you get old. You get old because you stop running.—Jack Kirk, ninety-six-year-old super-runner, in Christopher McDougall,
Born to Run

Caring for others and contributing to one’s community bring their own satisfactions as well as burdens. Participation in the paid workforce, no matter how enjoyable and rewarding, can leave scant free time for activities with family and friends, relaxation and recreation, creative and cultural pursuits, travel, board membership, and church, temple, or community service. This chapter discusses how older professional men choose to spend the leisure time they do have and compares their choices with those of older professional women.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26.5 percent of Americans (about 64.5 million people) were unpaid volunteers through or for an organization as of 2012.
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The greatest number of volunteer hours went to religious, educational or youth-service-related organizations, and social or community service organizations. Women volunteer at a higher rate than men (23.2 percent of men, 29.5 percent of women) across all age groups, educational levels, and other major demographic characteristics. The volunteer rate varies with education level—the more education, the more engagement in volunteer activities, including undertaking more than one volunteer job. Employed persons (29.1 percent) volunteer more than unemployed persons (23.8 percent); part-timers are doing more volunteering than persons employed full time.

Aside from the small number of men who told me they have “no free time” or “little time to spare,” most of the older men I surveyed somehow manage to find time to volunteer in addition to participating in the paid workforce—69 percent of the men are doing some type of volunteer work, such as community service, fundraising, or political activity. Peter Gossels epitomizes citizen service to the community—as portrayed in chapter 10, he served as moderator of the Wayland, Massachusetts, town meeting for thirty years. However, the role undertaken most frequently is that of trustee, board member, or board chairman. Their board service is for a museum or library, affordable housing agency, hospital, university, or nonprofit organization with a charitable/philanthropic, historical, arts, environmental, or sports orientation.

Stokley Towles’s board service illustrates the meaning of his favorite quote from Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we
get
; we make a life by what we
give
.” Since transitioning from full-time to part-time work at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH)—he is a partner at the oldest and largest private investment bank and securities firm in the country—Stokley has had more time for philanthropic and cultural pursuits. Among his volunteer positions was chairing the board of trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and spearheading the fundraising campaign for the New American Wing of the museum. In addition, he and his wife funded one of the contemporary art galleries. At seventy-six, he sticks to a well-established routine because he is strengthened by the work environment and wants to stay up to speed.

Profile: Stokley P. Towles

Six years ago on the occasion of Stokley Towles’s seventieth birthday, his three grown children presented him with a bound copy of “Towles’s Familiar Quotations,” a compendium of quotations chosen by Stokley’s friends and family in his honor. Some of the quotes were from well-known individuals and some were Stokley’s own wise or witty sayings. Taken together, they paint a loving portrait of a mature yet impish man.

“Success is getting paid for doing what you love to do.” This quote from David Starr Jordan, Stanford University’s first president, neatly sums up Stokley’s attitude toward his fifty-two-year career at BBH in Boston’s financial district. He made general partner in 1978 and became a limited partner two years ago.

Riding up in the elevator to the nineteenth floor offices of BBH, a passenger can follow minute-by-minute stock market fluctuations registered by the DJIA and the NASDAQ. BBH is North America’s oldest and largest partner-owned and managed bank. Founded in 1818 by the four Brown brothers, the company merged with Harriman Brothers & Co. and W. A. Harriman & Co. in 1931. The core functions of the new firm are commercial banking, investment advisory services, corporate finance, and custody, that is, providing a “warehouse” for international trading in which BBH settles the trades, holds securities for clients, and manages processes involving dividends and taxes, among other services. On a daily basis BBH computes the net asset value of mutual funds that are listed in newspapers across the country.

The custody part of BBH’s business has grown rapidly since the early 1960s when a freshly minted Princeton Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard MBA-educated banker named Stokley Towles was hired. He was part of a small group responsible for developing custody into a thriving global product: BBH now has $3 trillion in assets in custody for clients in eighty to ninety countries today. “I’m an idea person. Compared to the 1950s when everything was done ‘by the book,’ the 1960s was a period when new ideas mattered more and more. My bosses were open-minded; they always listened, gave counsel, and supported my efforts. They were my role models and remained good friends, too.”

Stokley has friends who have retired, and he meets with them over lunch where they muse about getting close to eighty, taking it one day at a time, and how it takes longer to do things. In his estimation, “If you retire at sixty or even sixty-five, you might have the energy to start another career or venture you’re passionate about. You shouldn’t wait too long! However, once you retire, people have less interest in what you say. When you’re still working, you’re assumed to be in touch and clients ask your opinion about business strategy.” Thus, retirement’s definitely not for him lest he lose
momentum
. His preferred routine is to get up every morning, buy a coffee and muffin, and go to the office. He wants to be
productive
and to be around people who appreciate his being around despite or because of his singularity: there are no others his age at BBH in Boston. “I benefit from structure and I enjoy interacting with people, so I’m strengthened by the work environment.” His philosophy of life is to keep going until you can’t, either because of poor health or no longer being useful. Two long-favored beliefs follow from this: “To him to whom much is given, much is required” and “You have to prove your value every day.”

Having gradually transitioned from full-time to part-time work in his seventies, Stokley has been able to “slack off a bit,” travel more, and devote more time to philanthropic and cultural pursuits. Not only does the BBH organization foster a good work-life balance for employees, Stokley personally is serious about the “much is required” admonition. Until three years ago he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. During his time at the helm, the Museum of Fine Arts successfully completed the largest fundraising campaign on behalf of a New England arts institution, topping its $500 million goal by $4 million and erecting the museum’s dramatic New American Wing. He and his wife funded one of the seven new galleries dedicated to contemporary art collections, the Jeanne and Stokley Towles Gallery. He is also a trustee of Vincent Memorial Hospital, St. Philip’s Church, and the Santa Barbara Art Museum in California.

Pictures of three handsome children have pride of place on Stokley’s desk, alongside a paperback copy of
Rules of Civility
, the 2011 novel written by his son Amor Towles, whose day job is in the financial services field. Stokley raised his children to be independent, honest, hard-working, and active members of society. The word
persevering
gets special emphasis. He would like to think his eleven grandchildren will share these values.

Stokley told me of another transition that is under way. While he remains very committed to the arts and culture, he would like to become more active in educational and social issues that he cares about. There are a lot of people hurting from the economic downturn today who could use some help. It’s a matter of finding the right way to be constructively involved. Two other quotations from his birthday book reflect this different yet equally important side of the man. The first comes from Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we
get
; we make a life by what we
give
.” The second is vintage Stokley: “Well, it’s a good thing that we’re doing. Don’t you think? I always want to leave things a little better than I found them.”

Longtime civil rights activist and political leader Leslie Burl McLemore devotes time to several volunteer positions in addition to his social justice and citizenship education work on behalf of the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy in Jackson, Mississippi. These include organizing an effort to restore a local cemetery, participating in a school-based mentoring program, advising the Mississippi Humanities Council, conducting voter registration for the NAACP, spearheading fundraising for scholarships at his alma mater, and serving on three civil rights–related commissions. Now seventy-two, he plans to contribute in one capacity or another for several more years.

Profile: Leslie Burl McLemore

Dr. Leslie Burl McLemore directs the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy in Jackson, Mississippi. Honoring the work of American voting rights activist and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, the institute’s mission is “to promote positive social change by examining the tools and experiences of those who struggle to create, expand, and sustain civil rights, social justice, and citizenship.” Its vision is “to nurture a generation of young people engaged in and committed to discourse on these topics.” The Hamer Institute offers educational programs, lectures, symposiums, and town hall–style discussions on citizenship, democracy, and civil rights issues past and present. There are summer youth programs and continuing education workshops for public school teachers and community college faculty. Book discussions on such topics as “The Changed and Changing South” and “Medgar Evers” foster a sense of community on the Jackson State University (JSU) campus. A core message of the institute says that history is made in all places and by all kinds of people.

Known as a civil rights activist, authority on the Southern civil rights movement, and local political leader, Leslie Burl McLemore served two and a half terms on the Jackson City Council, was interim mayor of Jackson in 2009, and then interim president of the university in 2010. With a master’s degree in political science from Atlanta University and, in 1971, a doctorate in government from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, he worked for more than forty years as professor of political science at JSU, where he taught courses on black politics and the civil rights movement. “To be candid, I never considered retiring in the traditional sense. I accepted emeritus status when I had had my fill of grading papers. I was nearing seventy years old and wanted to give more of my time to developing the Hamer Institute. I found that it rejuvenated me.”

Leslie was born into a sharecropping family in Walls, Mississippi, in 1940. Before he enrolled at Rust College in 1960, he led a boycott of classes at his high school in 1959. During his freshman year at Rust he participated in a boycott of a segregated theater in Holly Springs. “Discrimination really tried the soul in 1960. I was one of the founders and president of the first college chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at Rust. I became involved with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962 when I met Bob Moses. Rust professors encouraged my activism but also cautioned me to be sure to get my coursework done. They taught me to be disciplined and responsible. At such a small college, you couldn’t hide in the back of the class. The professors would call on everyone and you had to be prepared and well read,” he recalls vividly. “Because I was involved in the early voter registration drives, I was a veteran of the movement by the time I was a senior.” It was then 1964, and Leslie became a SNCC delegate to the newly formed Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In no time he was elected as a vice-chair of the party and became involved in negotiations and meetings.