Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job (30 page)

Profile: George Doubleday

Dividing his time between busy San Francisco and a retreat in Healdsburg, California, seventy-two-year-old George Doubleday is chairman of Geographic Expeditions, a tour operator and outfitter that offers 150 journeys to all seven continents. Groups, families, and couples can choose from what the GeoEx website (
www.geoex.com
) describes as “a varied portfolio of overland tours, treks, walks, and expeditionary voyages to the world’s most astonishing places.” GeoEx travelers pay a premium for customized, handcrafted trips that are carefully planned for sustainability, that is, leaving a minimum amount of “footprint” or impact on natural resources. It is no wonder that the company has won top honors from
Outside
magazine,
Travel and Leisure
,
Condé Nast
, and
National Geographic
.

In Healdsburg, George and Cynthia Doubleday have eleven acres on a hillside overlooking a peaceful valley in Sonoma County wine country. Cynthia is an architect who is working on houses for three different clients at present. The Doubledays each have three children from previous marriages and ten grandchildren between them. Like many far-flung families today, their offspring reside in Seattle, Dallas, New York City, Genoa, Italy, Portland, Oregon, and Santa Barbara, California. George gardens and does other outdoor chores, such as splitting wood and trimming bushes, on the three tillable acres. He is supervising the building of a tractor shed and taking piano lessons. He does yoga and Pilates, bikes, walks, skis, and swims. He serves on the boards of the San Francisco Aeronautical Society and the Pan Am Historical Foundation. Until he mentioned working out in a cardio rehab gym program twice a week, I would have never guessed that such an active man suffered a heart arrhythmia in 2011 that sidelined him for a while. He is back at GeoEx doing long-range planning on a part-time basis (supposedly), by which he meant all five days during the week when we spoke. “I like it. I get huge energy and great satisfaction from being here.”

George told me that his career developed by happenstance when he finished college. In 1961 he started out as a fighter pilot in the US Marine Corps, then joined Pan Am Airways as a management trainee. He mastered crew scheduling, operations analysis, flight operations, and interviewing new pilots. “It quickly occurred to me that pilots were having all the fun, so I asked to be trained as a copilot. I flew for seven years until I became staff vice president for worldwide operations control, a twenty-four/seven job that made it hard to maintain proficiency.” George’s next assignment for Pan Am was serving as regional managing director for Southeast Asia. From 1978 to 1981, Hong Kong became home base for George and his family. “China was just opening up, and it was a very exciting time. I was able to visit nooks and crannies no one had ever heard of in places like Malaysia and Borneo.” On trips with his three children, George had a great time snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef, skiing in New Zealand, and visiting with tribesmen in Papua New Guinea—all on the same trip.

He also enjoyed trekking in Nepal with friends who owned a remote jungle lodge. Those friends told him they were looking for a company in North America to send clients to them in Nepal. When the Doubledays moved to San Francisco in 1981, George teamed up with his friends in Nepal and with a daring mountaineer, a woman named Jo Sanders, in a new joint venture. Sanders was already running a company called InnerAsia and, just as importantly, she held a permit to operate trips with the Chinese Mountaineering Association. The new partners decided to keep the name InnerAsia. Shortly thereafter, in 1982, Jo Sanders was stricken by a cerebral hemorrhage and, tragically, had to withdraw from the business. George took over full management responsibilities. “At the time it was still a small business and one fraught with difficulties. For example, clients no longer wanted to travel to China after the Tiananmen Square student protests precipitated a massacre in 1989. That situation forced us to add destinations
outside
of Asia. As a result, we concluded that the company name should reflect our growing diversification. It became Geographic Expeditions, which was eventually shortened officially to GeoEx.”

George also has had what he refers to as three “corollary” businesses that are “fun but not terribly successful.” One is a rug company in Tibet that buys highland sheep wool from farmers and employs one hundred Tibetans as dyers, washers, and weavers. “Given China’s heavy hand in Tibet, it is very satisfying to be helping to preserve an endangered livelihood and lifestyle. That gives me a good feeling even though there is no profit in it.” The two other businesses are no longer operating. A consulting business advised American firms about technology transfer from the United States and Canada to India. “We were ahead of the curve on that one.” A cross-linked polyethylene pipe manufacturing company in Shanghai provided an alternative to copper piping, but local manufacturers undercut the company’s price, and George’s partners didn’t have enough local influence to compete.

GeoEx, however, has thrived and employs more than forty staff members today. George is extremely proud of the team he and his partners have built. “GeoEx has expertise in each area of the world. We can advise clients and set up itineraries tailored to their particular interests— wildlife, art, history, culture, scenery, safari drives, river trips, climbing, or a certain location. Our employees are hugely talented and many of them have been with us a very long time. I would like to offer them better retirement benefits.”

George no longer is responsible for day-to-day management of the company. He told me that he would like to find a way to “step away gracefully,” but that all depends on whether he can find the right person to replace him. It seems like that will take quite a bit of time.

Health club membership is a booming industry for adults fifty-five and older. They are clearly heeding the messages about the benefits of regular exercise—mental as well as physical—for quality of life. According to the
Houston Chronicle
online, 25 percent of some 41 million health club members in the United States are over fifty-five years old, making this the fastest-growing segment of health club memberships.
2
One explanation for the surge is fitness-conscious baby boomers moving into the senior ranks. Another explanation is health insurance providers offering cash incentives for joining a gym.

Yet a third explanation is scientific evidence that regular physical activity helps protect against cancer, osteoporosis and fragility, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dementia. Neuroscience research is discovering that loss of memory as we age is not inevitable. Although genes play a role, studies show that regular exercise spurs biochemical changes leading to new brain cells (neurons) being produced in a process called neurogenesis, as well as more effective connections between neurons, thus aiding learning and memory even in old age. Along with intellectual stimulation, socializing, and being active—for example, aerobics and resistance training or merely walking for thirty to sixty minutes a day three days per week—have been shown to increase cognitive performance in older adults. Researchers at Northwestern University’s Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center are studying men and women over age eighty whom they call “SuperAgers” because their memories are exceptional, that is, as good or better than fifty- and sixty-year-olds.
3
The cortex within our brains may gradually shrink, but loss of memory as we age can be lessened.

More than half of the women I studied (54 percent) are “into” sports and fitness, but for the women, travel holds second place (68 percent). Men also enjoy travel; at 60 percent it is their third favorite leisure activity. Like many older folks who travel to visit family, Ted Grenham and his wife rack up frequent flier mileage on annual trips to see their children and grandchildren in Oregon and Australia.

More than one-third of the men say that they spend leisure time on the computer, and one-third say that they enjoy making music or listening to music. Steve Schoenbaum stands out because he is a serious pianist. Jack Buckley stands out because he plays the fiddle or practices the concertina for two hours a night. Bob Schecter is a Scottish country dancing enthusiast. Somewhat less than one-third of the men devote free time to gardening and yard work. George Doubleday splits wood and gardens. Writing, solving crossword puzzles, creating various art forms, participating in religious programs, and taking adult education classes are strong interests for some of the men. One lifelong learner is Dick Winslow, who audits classes at the University of Washington. Social media, all the rage with younger people, appears to have minimal appeal for senior men, however.

Pastimes mentioned by men multiple times are, in order of frequency: family time, home improvement projects, movies, film club, theater, boating, sailing, woodworking, church choir, fishing, friends, motorcycles, photography, and technology (building and repairing computers). Other leisure-time activities that received just one mention include: caring for an antique car, assisting relatives, participating in a bereavement support group, watching British television shows, camping, cooking, supporting environmental efforts, genealogy, doing investment research, studying a foreign language, meditating, collecting model trains, people-probing (learning about lives), performing living history, studying history, and solving Sudoku puzzles.

Clearly, these mature age professionals are active and engaged in work as well as nonwork activities. Dare we borrow a term from neuroscience and call them SuperAgers?

10

Men Still at Work

If you have your health, you can earn a living and be active and involved with people and issues, and you can help change things for the better.—Peter Gossels, Attorney

It is clear that professionals are remaining in their career jobs longer than in the past. Indeed, the BLS expects the overall trend in favor of higher labor force participation rates for all older men and women alike to continue in the near future.
1
By 2016, the two oldest groups of workers (sixty-five to seventy-four and seventy-five and up) are each expected to grow by more than 80 percent, far outstripping the rate for younger groups (under fifty-five) and more than twice the rate for fifty-five to sixty-four-year-old workers. Even when retirement from a career job does occur, it does not necessarily mean a permanent exit from the workforce if a suitable part-time position, consulting job, or business ownership is obtainable.

Like many human career changers, “job hopping” worker ants graduate from one function to another as they age. Swiss researchers who tagged worker ants to study their behavior discovered that younger ants are primarily nurses, a middle group cleans the colony, and older ants go outside to forage.
2
While foraging is the most dangerous job, it may or may not mean that older ants are less valuable to the colony and thus expendable. Moreover, the career changing process is not clear cut: some foragers are in fact young and some nurses are old. One interpretation says that those are rogue ants taking jobs not suitable for their age.
3
Another interpretation from a University of York researcher is that age per se is not the criterion—what matters is the amount of fat stored in their bodies. Leaner ants go out to forage and older ants tend to be leaner. It is tempting, isn’t it, to perceive this segment of the natural world as a metaphor for the behavior of mature human workers who are lean in the sense of being fit for work and whose contributions are considered valuable. Continuing in the workforce in the senior years may be relatively uncommon—even as the
rate
of participation is accelerating, in terms of
numbers
more older men and women are retired—but uncommon, or exceptional, is hardly equivalent to rogue.

Given the recent financial crisis and its after-effects, it would be easy to assume that money woes underlie the decision to postpone retirement and keep working. And it is true that insufficient savings, depleted investments, and fears concerning rising health-care costs are enough to keep many workers on the job. Whether they are seniors or members of the younger generations following us, if they are struggling to keep afloat, they may not have a choice. Economic uncertainties are real enough, but they do not tell the whole story, at least for those fortunate older men and women who
do
have a choice. Recall that it was curiosity about the reasons they give for remaining in or returning to the workforce well past conventional retirement age, as well a suspicion that men’s work life stories might differ from the stories women tell, that led to the two separate-but-linked investigations I undertook. Admittedly, I was relieved and also amused to find the men as willing as the women to tell me their work life stories, for I had mistakenly anticipated that it would be more difficult to get busy men to talk about themselves.

Men (and women) in their sixties, seventies, and eighties readily shared their reasons with me for working late. Under the umbrella of
job satisfaction
, they give many examples: “Staying active (by working) keeps me in good health and good spirits.” “I enjoy the work, it’s my passion . . . it’s fun!” “By working I give back to others.” “I stay engaged.” Using their abilities, skills, and training is also very important to them, as is enjoying colleagues and coworkers, as well as their clients, students, patients, or customers. In addition to relishing strong and enduring family bonds (most are married with children and grandchildren), they cite higher education as one of the keys to their success. Many earned advanced degrees, put them to good use in professional capacities, and now have the income to show for it. Many benefited from mentoring and in turn are mentoring early careerists. Most are making time for volunteer work and most enjoy one or more leisure pursuits as well. All recognize that good health and stamina are essential. They want to stay alert, keep their minds sharp and their bodies fit. They want to stay in the game, as sports fans would say. Still, their busy lives are not without costs, particularly the stress and fatigue associated with the workplace and the demands of business travel, and, even if they are self-employed, not having enough time for all that needs to be done.

In addition to the many attributes older working men and women in this demographic share, there are also differences. On the whole, the men started their careers earlier than the women, more than half of whom had taken time out for childrearing. The men are staying in the workforce longer and are more apt to be working full time. Mainly because of choice of career field (business is number one for men, education is number one for women) and partially because of entrenched pay inequities, the men earn higher salaries and receive considerably more Social Security income than the women. The men are more likely than the women to hold jobs in the private sector and in a metropolitan area (where higher-paying professional jobs are usually to be found). Even when educational attainment is on a par, career choice, sector, and location are important determinants of income level. These are some of the factors, in addition to life’s vicissitudes, that help to put older women under greater financial pressure than older men.

Women more than men report a growing awareness of being out of step, particularly with younger folks’ fashions and lifestyles. Older women, but not older men, speak of being invisible and feeling they no longer “count” in the wider world. Professionals of both genders seem to know themselves well by the time they reach the senior years: the men tending to define themselves, as their fathers did, primarily by what they do for a living and the goals they have reached; the women tending to see themselves reflected in home, family, and collegial relationships and responsibilities first, and as career women second. Although they are unlikely to be thought of as Martians and Venusians today,
4
given the era in which my respondents grew up, avoiding those stereotypical definitions of masculinity and femininity was difficult if not impossible.

To be sure, many older working women take great pride in the strides they made as professionals under the influence of a burgeoning feminist consciousness. Consequently, it is to be hoped that their daughters and granddaughters do not have to fight quite as hard for equal treatment in the workplace. However, recent controversies over flex-time scheduling and working from home, and debates about whether women can “have it all,” suggest that work/life balance and glass ceiling issues are still very much with us. What’s more, despite federal law prohibiting age discrimination, stereotypes about aging also remain. Employers may say they do not give credence to “lower productivity as the career clock winds down,” but a reluctance to hire older workers, especially older workers who have been out of work for a while, indicates otherwise.

In the concluding chapter of
Women Still at Work
I presented a highly accomplished and exceptional older woman as the pièce de résistance. For the same purpose I have selected one participant from this study, octogenarian Peter Gossels, who embodies many of the impressive qualities associated with older men still at work. Peter had been practicing law for fifty-six years when I interviewed him. His is an inspiring story of escape from war-torn Europe as a young child, building a professional and family life in the country that took him in, and dedicating his time, talents, and treasure to the improvement of public education, religious practice, and civil society. He doesn’t think of law merely as his career: “It shapes my life, and
it is who I am
.” Some lines from Sartre’s 1945 lecture,
Existentialism
, seem to convey Peter’s philosophy:

And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men . . . a man is nothing else than a series of undertakings . . . the sum, the organization, the ensemble of the relationships which make up these undertakings. . . . Consequently we are dealing here with an ethics of action and involvement.
5

Profile: C. Peter R. Gossels

A refugee from war-torn Europe, eighty-two-year-old attorney Peter Gossels is deeply rooted in his community and still immersed in his work. In 1939, when he was eight and his little brother, Werner, was five, their mother, Charlotte Lewy Gossels, was desperate to get her sons out of Berlin. She somehow managed to secure visas for her boys from the French Embassy and they were sent by train to Quincy sous Sénart, twenty miles southeast of Paris, along with thirty-eight other Jewish children. There they were the “guests” of a French count and his wife, a Russian Jew, at the Château de Quincy that had served as a finishing school for White Russian teenage girls, whose parents had fled the Bolshevik takeover of Russia. After the Germans overran northern France in June 1940 and almost killed them during the battle of Fontainebleau, the Gossels brothers spent three months in an orphanage outside of Paris. In January 1941, the brothers were placed in the Château de Chabannes, a home for children run by Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, a French Jewish humanitarian organization in the unoccupied zone of France. The tiny hamlet of Chabannes was located near Vichy in central France. An award-winning documentary film,
The Children of Chabannes
, produced and directed by Peter’s daughter, Lisa Gossels, and Dean Wetherell in 1999, picks up the story there.

Peter’s mother and grandmother were murdered by the Nazis, as were many other members of his family.

The Château de Chabannes sheltered approximately one hundred Jewish children at any given time arriving from Germany, France, Poland, and Austria, who were protected by a staff of counselors led by its director, Félix Chevrier, and the local populace, all of whom were non-Jews. The children learned to speak French and attended the local school, which was conducted by two schoolteachers, the sisters Reine and Renee Paillassou. They also learned basic survival skills. Peter remembers how proud he was to receive two blankets donated to the orphanage by the American Friends Service Committee. And thanks to the assistance of the Quakers and Eleanor Roosevelt, who obtained visas for them (she asked the State Department for ten thousand; she got two hundred), Peter and Werner were among the lucky ones to be rescued and brought to the United States in 1941. The rest of the children who had been at Chabannes were hidden in private French homes, joined the French Resistance, or, when the Nazis could find them, sent to concentration camps.

The Gossels boys were placed with separate foster families in Brookline, Massachusetts. Peter went to Boston Latin and on scholarship to Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Werner went to Brookline High School and had to “settle” for Yale (a little tease between brothers). After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Peter returned to Boston in 1956 to look for a job. Unfortunately, Boston law firms in the fifties hired very few Jews. With no money and none of the connections many of his friends could call on, Peter had to make his own way. His first job was at the law firm of Sullivan and Worcester where he trained as a trial lawyer.

He started a family with his wife, Nancy, and they put their roots down in Wayland, a suburban town west of Boston. Their daughter Lisa is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker; their daughter Amy works as an independent casting director, producer, and teacher; and their son, Daniel, serves as a managing director of Mesa Global, an investment bank in New York City where he and his sisters now live.

From 1965 to 1972, Peter was a partner in the firm of Zelman, Gossels, and Alexander. During this period, Peter worked with soon-to-be-governor Michael Dukakis to develop and enact the first system of no-fault automobile insurance protection in the country. In 1972 he joined the Boston law firm of Weston Patrick, P.A. where he practices in a wide variety of legal specialties to this day—litigation, real estate law, family law, school law and special education, municipal law, corporate and business law, and more. “I deal with people and the problems they bring. Helping people, solving problems keeps me alert and alive. The law is not all fun and games, of course; it’s demanding, and to stay on the cutting edge is a challenge. I’ve been practicing for fifty-six years, but last year was the best year I ever had!” His influence within the legal profession is strong. A Master of the Superior Court, he helped persuade the Boston Bar Association to study ways to make the Massachusetts court system more accessible, less costly and time-consuming, and to adopt changes recommended in the report he coauthored in 2005. He is also a frequent contributor of articles on a variety of professional issues to the
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
.