Ready for Your Second Career?

Sonia Collazo, volunteer networking and presentations coordinator (featured above)

After retiring from her job in conflict resolution for Philadelphia's Commission on Human Relations where she had worked 27 years, Collazo knew she wanted to work in the Latino community. When she read that Congreso, a multiservice nonprofit for low-income local communities, was starting a Friday group for older Spanish-speaking adults, she volunteered.

Two months after she started, they began paying her to be the networking and presentations coordinator. Collazo finds speakers and arranges presentations on topics such as living wills, voter registration and HIV/AIDS, and she uses her mediation skills to keep the diverse group simpatico. "I love what I'm doing, and as long as I have my health and energy, I'll keep working," she says.

Linda Rosso, a marketing consultant, decided to reimagine her promotional skills and passion as a painter to assist fellow artists sell their work.

Jonathan Sprague

Linda Rosso, painter and marketing consultant

Rosso was a marketing and communications executive for a national public relations firm in San Francisco when the Great Recession hit. "It was a good time to step off the path and look at what I really wanted to be doing," she says. While continuing to work in marketing, she took a painting course at a local college. When her oil landscapes began to sell, Rosso noticed that more accomplished artists were selling fewer paintings than she was.

She drew up a plan to help other artists market their work. Rosso continues to consult with companies and artists. "I've found the perfect job because I get to do everything I love," she says. She now gets paid to use her marketing and promotion skills, helps artists sell their paintings and paints three days a week herself. She also has time to do volunteer work. Her new idea: Start an online marketing website to help artists sell their work, with a portion of the sales going to charity. "I think I can help them make a big difference in their careers," Rosso says.

Bob Groves, former nonprofit executive, now finds his second-life joy as a teacher of human rights and English.

Bill Cramer/Wonderful Machine

Bob Groves, teacher

In 2011, Groves, a nonprofit executive then in his early 60s, unexpectedly lost his job. "I struggled mightily," he says. "Suddenly, I was no longer The Man I had been at work who people came to, and had to figure out how to fulfill myself."

Groves took courses in poetry, improvisational acting ("to stretch myself") and other courses at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Temple University in Philadelphia, one of 117 Osher programs on campuses nationwide that are designed to enhance the lives of semiretired and retired people. He decided he wanted to teach. Now 30 older students take his course on human rights; he teaches English to a woman from Nepal and he gets to babysit his 2-year-old granddaughter every Thursday. If paid work came up, Groves would be interested but says he's "not actively looking for it." His wife still works full time.

Dianne Aguilar, part-time community connections coordinator

A resident of Tempe, Ariz., Aguilar spent 30 years working for Arizona State University's athletic department and two professional sports teams. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and a year later lost her job. "At first I thought, 'woe is me,' but then I realized I always wanted to change my career and now is my chance," Aguilar says.

She enrolled in ASU's one-year certificate program in nonprofit management. Through Experience Matters, a local organization that connects boomers with nonprofits, she obtained a $20,000 stipend to work part time for a year for Mission of Mercy, an organization that provides primary health care for the uninsured — a cause close to her heart. There, she used her database expertise to help pilot a health education program. After the fellowship ended, Mission of Mercy asked Aguilar to stay on part time to replicate the program in the organization's five other clinics. "The money isn't the same, but I feel I'm making an impact in the world," she says.