Some retired execs skip traditional life of ease

Business veterans derive satisfaction, stay sharp by sharing their expertise

By Megan Cooley

After retiring from Avista Corp., Jon Eliassen was named interim president and CEO of the Spokane Area Economic Development Council. He says he’s not the kind of person who can "just sit around the house."

Retirement usually conjures up images of sandy beaches, European vacations, and lazy days at home curled up with books and grandchildren.

For some Spokane business executives, though, retirement is just the start of a new phase of work. In their post-retirement endeavors, they relish the opportunity to share their expertise after years of building a base of business knowledge and skill. In addition, they say they profit from staying active—by participating on boards, investing in companies, or filling interim leadership positions.

“I read all the time that people who keep an active mind live a better life,” says Wendell Satre, who was chairman and chief executive officer of Spokane-based Washington Water Power Co., now called Avista Corp., before retiring in 1985. “You’re less susceptible to things that happen in older age, like dementia. If I can help and doing so helps me, that’s great.”

Satre, 85, was called out of retirement in the early 1990s to help Spokane-based Key Tronic Corp. and Spokane Valley-based Output Technology Corp. (OTC), which were struggling at the time. Satre still serves on Key Tronic’s board, as well as the board of Spokane-based Coeur d’Alenes Co., and still is board chairman OTC.

“The community has been very good to me, and I would like to help,” Satre says.

On a typical day, Satre says he’s up at 6:30 a.m., eats breakfast, reads the newspaper, then sits at his computer and checks the markets.

“Then I’ll go over my task list, which has about 100 items on it,” Satre says. “I try to do that day the things that are on the task list, but I confess that I don’t always get everything done.”

He works through the day, sometimes gets to rest in the afternoon, then goes back to work after dinner, either at home or at meetings at the businesses and organizations he serves, he says.

Satre doesn’t flinch at the long hours and says he averaged at least 60 hours a week while working as CEO of the utility company.

In July, Satre resigned from Empire Health Services’ board, which was the first step he has taken toward curbing his activity. He’d served in that role since the month before he retired from the power company’s top job.

“I’ve started the unloading process,” he says. “At age 85, a fella shouldn’t have to work in the evening.”

Like Satre, Jon Eliassen, interim president and CEO of the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, had barely let the ink dry on his congratulations-on-your-retirement cards before jumping back into action.

“I was on the streets for three months,” he jokes.

Eliassen, 56, had worked for Avista and its predecessor for 33 years before retiring from the position of chief financial officer in April. When the EDC’s former president and CEO left last summer, the board contacted Eliassen about the job. He agreed to take it on a half-time, one-year basis, but it has evolved into a full-time load.

“It’s fun to be involved,” he says. “I’m the kind of person who could never just sit around the house.”

Eliassen had begun to get involved in community and corporate boards two years ago, and he currently sits on the boards of WestCoast Hospitality Corp. and Itron Inc.

“My plan was to balance my board activity,” he says. “Now, people give me a bad time. They tell me I’m an abject failure at retirement.”

Jim Ingebritsen, chairman of the Spokane chapter of the Service Corps of retired Executives (SCORE), says the dozens of years of trial and error, institutional memory, and solid work ethic that retired business executives have are valuable to those who are in earlier stages of their careers. SCORE is a national organization that coordinates retired volunteers who offer counseling to businesses. At the local chapter, about two-thirds of the 55 volunteers are retirees, Ingebritsen says.

“They give people a sense of encouragement. They can let them know they’re on the right track or let them know if they need some adjustment,” he says.

Also motivating those volunteers to give of their time is the sense that they can be of some assistance to companies.

“You get some satisfaction in being able to help someone get started with what they’re doing or continue with what they’re doing,” Ingebritsen says.

For Johnny Humphreys, former president and CEO of Spokane-based Itron, it’s especially fulfilling to help companies in their early stages of development.

“When they’re so early stage that they may or may not make it, I feel like I can make a difference,” he says.

Humphreys is on the board of Itron, Spokane-based GenPrime Inc., and a California company called Interneer Inc. He’d worked for 38 years before retiring in early 2000. Although he works two or three days a week now, he still finds time to go on vacation, race cars, and play golf, and he enjoys the “comfortable pace” at which he fulfills his retirement-era duties, he says.

“Unlike when you’re full time, you can name your priorities,” Humphreys says. “When you’re a CEO, you’re not only on a treadmill, but someone else is setting the speed of the treadmill for you.”

Humphreys says more retirees are in demand now, especially those with financial experience because of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s new, more stringent reporting requirements on public companies.

“People with financial backgrounds are almost courted,” he says. “There’s an awful lot of people like me who want to get back to helping early-stage companies, and there’s another group that’s being recruited by public companies who want someone with financial expertise on their boards.”

Satre says his many of his role models in the business world either died at a young age or took a more traditional approach to retirement.

“I think it probably wasn’t as common then” to continue working, he says.

He wonders sometimes whether the boards he serves “really want to send a proxy statement that shows a board member, age 85,” Satre says. He says, though, that he will continue serving as long as he’s needed.

“All of them have expressed to me that I add value to the organization,” he says. “I don’t want to occupy a position just to be occupying a position.”

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