Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com April 27, 2015 • Hartford Business Journal 15 Hentschel: 'I still feel like I'm contributing' By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com D olores Hentschel is 15 years into her second act since her retirement from academia as an adult educator. At 72, Hentschel — or "Doe'' as she's known to friends, family and colleagues — also takes time out to travel each winter to the Caribbean or to visit her Baby-Boomer age children and her grandkids, and that's just fine with her. Hentschel says more Americans her age — or those who someday will be — ought to aspire to move into the next fulfilling stages of their lives, whether it's working fewer hours for pay or doing something for themselves and/or their communities. Aging experts and professionals inside and outside the Connecticut and Hartford area nonprofit communities say Hentschel is typical of a growing cohort of older resi- dents who are finding their second, or in some cases, third acts. Indeed, the term "Third Agers'' is a sobri- quet for this enlightened, energetic corps of residents 50 and older for whom retirement is not yet a part of their vocabularies. "I'm sort of a model for what it means to be an old lady,'' Hentschel said sitting in her midtown Hartford office where she works at nonprofit Leadership Greater Hartford Inc. "If I forget about a few aches and pains, I feel like I'm in my prime.'' It's a sentiment Hentschel shares often with the newly retired or those looking for a new start giving back through community- focused local, state and regional nonprofit agencies and organizations like LGH. She is vice president at LGH, where she also directs its Third Age initiative and is a key liaison to UConn in its Encore!Hartford program. Third Age targets retir- ees who are look- ing to be engaged in their communities. Encore!Hartford is aimed at mid- and later-career people seeking to change careers. Diagnosed six years ago with Par- kinson's disease, Hentschel hasn't let it inter- fere with her work schedule, which often aver- ages 50 to 55 hours a week. No matter what, she makes time, as she did in February, to carve out three weeks for herself to sun in the Cayman Islands, in her beachfront timeshare. "I'm not ready to slow down,'' she said. "I feel like I'm still contributing. It surpris- es me. People often tell me they see me as such a wise person. I don't think of myself as wise. But as long as what I do is valued by other people, why should I stop?" Coming of age in a male-dominated era of the 1960s, Hentschel said she never expected to have a career, even with her college degree. She and her college sweet- heart married young, and early on she stayed home raising their two children. Eventually, she went back to school to collect her master's and doctoral degrees. But starting her career or running continu- ing education programs at various Midwest colleges and making her way back eastward, Hentschel eventually landed at UConn in 1986. But she left in 1995 to join a smaller col- lege as vice president. Taking stock of her life and after consulting with her financial adviser, she made a decision. "I retired, so I could come home and be a full-time grandmother," Hentschel said. It lasted only six months, when she was hired at LGH to start Third Age. She said she believes her past and current work and contributions with older citizens is a chief reason she was elected in 2013 to the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame. Meantime, LGH is accepting applications for its next Third Age class that will be seated this fall. Her advice to others at or close to retire- ment age who are unsure what they want to do next in their lives? "I think a lot of it is attitude," Hentschel said. The notion that elders, once they reach a certain age, are supposed to stop working and go home, is passe, she said. "We now know that's not healthy aging,'' Hentschel said. n An 'Encore' for Cigna's retirees By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com F or nearly three decades, Marjorie Stein worked in the human-resources depart- ment for health insurer Cigna Corp. Stein retired in 2013 as director of employee relations, but within months she was back at work at Cigna's Philadelphia offices, albeit in a different role and with shorter hours — usually 20 hours a week but no more than 80 hours a month — so as not to jeopardize her com- pany pension. "It's been won- derful,'' the 64-year- old Pennsylvania native said recently by phone from her suburban Philly home. "It's allowed me flexibility." According to Cigna officials, its Encore program has matched hundreds of Cigna retirees who still want to work with tasks similar to what they did in their old jobs, or even new assign- ments. It began in response to Cigna retirees who wanted to continue working just enough hours weekly to not jeopardize their pension or Social Security benefits. It also provided Cigna the opportunity to leverage the energy and skill sets of its older workers, officials said. Observers inside and outside Cigna say they are unaware of any large, public companies with a program similar to it. "It's a win-win-win all the way around,'' said Michael P. Reagan, who succeeded Stein as Cigna's director of employee relations and is now her boss. Their department handles human-resources and benefits-related needs for Cigna employees. "We're able to bring back experienced folks, talented folks who have institutional knowledge,'' Reagan said. Hundreds of Cigna workers have partici- pated in its Encore program since its 1987 launch, he said. It is one of several "flexible- work" programs Cigna offers that appeal to a broad cross-section of new hires and veteran employees, Reagan said. "All companies are trying to be thoughtful and creative in how you retain talent,'' he said. Reagan emphasized Encore participation is strictly voluntary, and Cigna only accepts enrollees after it has verified that it has a spe- cific need for a retiree's skills. Stein says she puts in no more than 80 hours a month at Cigna's Philadelphia office- campus, overseeing employee complaints. Her free time is devoted to the gym, doing volunteer work, traveling more with her retired husband, and caring for her 92-year- old mother who lives nearby. Stein says her husband doesn't have an Encore job like hers, "but I think he'd really like it because he's bored. That's something I'm not.'' n Michael P. Reagan, Cigna director of employee relations Retired Cigna worker Marjorie Stein. TV game-show host and news commentator Hugh Downs, a big Third Age promoter, spoke. Out of that, a concept was born that could benefit both older individuals eager to stay active and engaged, or even employed, said LGH President Ted Carroll. Experts on aging point to mounting research showing older Americans who engage regularly in mental and physical activities are healthier and live longer. "Getting them to serve,'' Carroll said, "was a way to serve them. The nonprofit community loves this, because they're get- ting seasoned talent at a fraction of what this talent would command in the marketplace.'' It took another three years to devise the Third Age curricula, which involves weeks- long coursework and a year-long fellowship inside a nonprofit. LGH hired a former UConn educator with extensive experience in con- tinuing adult education, Dorothy Hentschel, to run it. Since then, some 111 Third Age pupils have enrolled and graduated into paid or volunteer service at area nonprofits. Encore!Hartford is patterned on a similar initiative, Encore.org, launched originally in 1997 as Civic Ventures by San Francisco social entrepreneur Marc Freedman, to har- ness and reorient the skills of midlife and aging Americans for social good. The Hartford variant is one of only a hand- ful in the country, but the concept is spread- ing, said James Emerman, executive vice president of Encore.org. Encore!Hartford, according to Encore.org and LGH officials, has shared its conceptual blueprint with offi- cials at the United Nations and in Spain. "We're not the first cohort of people to live this long,'' Emerman said of the 78 mil- lion Baby Boomers and millions more older Americans. "But the size of the cohort of Boomers has required society to rethink aspects of every piece of our culture." "It's not surprising,'' Emerman said, "that as this group has reached the age of retire- ment, that we need to be rethinking that [retirement] part of our culture as well.'' Of the two aging-citizen initiatives, Encore!Hartford is widely discussed among Connecticut's community of older citizens and dozens of public and nonprofit agencies that exist to serve their needs as well as track their progress. Third Age seated its first class of 25 enroll- ees in 2001. Each year since, a new class of two dozen participants reorient their skills to the way nonprofits do things. Pupils are com- prised of current or retired white- and blue- collar workers — many with college degrees, others without. "They have this common interest to serve,'' Carroll said. "They may not be financially wealthy, but they are financially stable enough that they want to learn and connect with other people and to serve the community they love.'' The true appeal of Encore!Hartford and Third Age is that they offer work flexibility that workplace surveys increasingly show are desired by over-50 employees and younger Generation Xers and Millennials, Carroll said. "The one thing people want is time," Car- roll said. "The most progressive workplaces will be the ones that are most flexible.'' n CTWorks, a skills-assessment, job-counseling center, who insisted he sit down and define his life's passions. He did and was amazed when he realized that working to advance the vol- ume of affordable housing in Connecticut was something that gave him a "psychic charge.'' Almost right way, the Encore!Hartford program hit his radar. He enrolled and was accepted. Because he was still unemployed at the time, the state picked up his $3,000 enrollment tab. In March 2013, Elson and 23 other Connecticut residents were seated into the latest training class. All but a cou- ple of his Encore classmates still work at nonprofits, he and a former classmate say. But when time came to choose a non- profit where he could do his Encore fellow- ship, none fit the bill. So, Elson researched and found one that suited his aims and his offer to work for free for six weeks. Boston's Women's Institute for Housing and Econom- ic Development at the time had a small office in Hartford. Halfway into his stint, the non- profit offered him a full-time job. Elson's Encore!Hartford alum Joan Barere, a former securities lawyer now a strategic planner for Capital Workforce Partners in Hartford, said Elson was the first in their class to land a nonprofit post. Barere said her career shift from the for-profit to nonprofit sector has "been very rewarding and very appealing'' not only for her, but her college-age daughter who is now considering nonprofits as a career. "I feel like by switching careers," Barere said, "I've set an example for her about her career alternatives for her whole trajectory, not just retirement. That really pleases me.'' Elson said his Encore experience pro- vided him a fresh outlook. "What the Encore program did for me,'' Elson said, "was it gave me the traction that I couldn't get on my own. It gave me cred- ibility. It gave me the opportunity … to gain the experience that I needed to launch.'' At the housing institute, Elson said he worked on development of a 22-unit elderly affordable-housing complex in Essex. His private-sector finance and development skills enable Elson to serve as project man- ager, working on zoning and financing. In March 2014, for personal reasons, Elson left for a slot doing similar work with New Neighborhoods in Stamford, a nonprofit affordable-housing developer. "I'm much more professionally and per- sonally fulfilled now because the projects I'm working on are primarily affordable housing for people who need it,'' he said. "Strip shop- ping centers don't really meet that.'' n P H O T O | C O N T R I B U T E D Dolores Hentschel

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