That’s the vision of an activist author – and the reality of three “reinvented” Philadelphians.
By Art Carey
January 28, 2007
Philadelphia Inquirer
In the end, only one question matters: What did you do with the dash?
You know, the dash on your tombstone, the one between the year you were born and the year you die. The dash represents time, and how you use that time tells the story of your life.
Right now, 78 million baby boomers are writing the final chapters of their stories. The oldest boomers turned 60 this year, and every 7.5 seconds, another boomer crosses the threshold of 50.
Bill Novelli has high hopes for these narratives. He believes the boomers, who have created a demographic ruckus at every stage of their lives, have the potential to transform our notion of aging and to solve some of society's most daunting problems.
He makes his case in 50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America, a book whose title says it all.
“We’re going to be a better society as a result of being an older society,” Novelli declares. “Boomers have a need for change, and the power to make change. They’ve got longevity, better health and education than previous generations, and big numbers. I regard them as 78 million revolutionaries.”
As chief executive officer of AARP, Novelli, 65, has an informed perspective. He’s also something of a poster boy for the very reinvention phenomenon he foretells.
He began in corporate marketing, then worked for a hot ad agency before founding his own agency, Porter Novelli, which was devoted to applying marketing to health and social issues (environmental protection, cancer detection and control, reproductive health and infant survival in developing countries, etc.).
In 1990, at age 49, he “retired” from Porter Novelli to pursue a full-time career in public service. He worked at CARE, the international relief agency, then launched the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He sees the same sense of social commitment in the swelling tide of boomers.
“There’s a lot of research that shows that older people really care about the country,” says Novelli, who was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, both as an undergraduate and at the Annenberg School for Communication. “They care about their kids and grandkids and want to leave the world a better place than they found it.”
Novelli has contempt for the word retirement. “Take that word and throw it away,” he exhorts. As traditionally defined, retirement suggests pulling back, withdrawing, slowing down. Novelli sees the senior years differently, as a time to plunge in, engage, pursue new opportunities with purpose and passion, energy and zeal.
For many boomers, “What's next?” has shoved aside thoughts of “I’m slowing down,” he asserts.
“We have the ability to be a great society as a result of aging, and we will be,” says Novelli, in full cheerleading mode. “But it’s not going to happen if we sit in our rocking chairs.”
The book is a to-do list of opportunity: to transform health care, reinvent retirement, revolutionize the workplace, build livable communities, change the marketplace, advocate for a cause, and leave a legacy.
Whew! After all that opportunity, we will be ready to retire, to play a round of golf or sit by the lake watching the sun set.
There's another less flattering side of the generation – opportunity is not that far from opportunistic – and Novelli is well aware of it.
“The boomers have been pretty narcissistic,” he says. “They’re called the Me Generation for a reason. They’ve been spoiled, catered to and coddled because they’re such an enormous market.”
“But as people get older, several things happen: They become caregivers, not only of their children but their aging parents. They began to see the future and their own mortality. All that helps to move from ‘me’ to ‘we.’ ”
Bill Novelli sees the senior years as a time to plunge in, engage and pursue new opportunities with purpose and passion, energy and zeal. Here are three models of what he’s talking about, people who are remaking themselves – and making the world a little better along the way:
Barbara Chandler Allen
Barbara Chandler Allen is a serial entrepreneur, a woman who delights in gathering a group of people and making things happen. She’s the type of person who follows her fascination, who goes where she feels needed, and who wants to swoon when she gets there.
“If I believe in the mission,” she says, “I'm just possessed.”
In 2004, after a half-dozen years trying to help the Charter High School of Architecture + Design (CHAD) thrive, first as a parent volunteer, then as director of development, she suddenly found herself, at age 56, without a job, owing to an institutional upheaval.
In mourning, she sought comfort from a mentor. “This may seem like the worst day of your life now,” he counseled. “But a year from now you'll look back on it as the best day of your life.”
Allen decided to spend the next 12 months – a "snow year," she calls it – plotting her next move, figuring out how to reinvent herself.
A self-described “old hippie,” Allen, who lives in Lafayette Hill, has devoted nearly all her energy to nonprofits. If there’s a string that ties all her endeavors together, it’s her desire, as she puts it, “to effect change in the lives of the disadvantaged.”
And so earlier this year, when she was asked to help start a local chapter of Cradles to Crayons, a successful Boston organization that gives kids the stuff they need to get a solid start in life, Allen signed on.
“It’s grassroots recycling, shifting stuff from people who have too much to people who have nothing,” she says.
The stuff includes clothing, books, school supplies, educational toys and baby equipment such as cribs, car seats and strollers.
After donated items are collected, they are inspected and sorted by volunteers in a central warehouse, then distributed to the needy through various social-service agencies.
At age 58, Allen is in a swoon, once again. “I have found what I want to do with the rest of my life,” she declares.
Della Clark
Della Clark’s father was a contractor in Tyler, Texas, where he had to hustle for business. Being African American made the scramble more difficult.
Clark, the sixth of seven children, watched her daddy and admired his persistence. In her early teens, she started a babysitting business. After earning a business degree at American University, working as a corporate accountant and selling industrial commodities, she launched a bottled-water company.
It lasted seven years before foundering. Clark learned valuable lessons: the difficulty of managing a remote operation, the importance of having adequate capital.
Her experience made her an attractive candidate when the Enterprise Center was looking for a president.
“They needed someone who had owned a business and knew the trials and tribulations,” she says.
Clark, 53, who lives in East Oak Lane, has led the West Philadelphia organization for 14 years. On her watch, the center moved into new quarters, transforming the dilapidated TV station that was the original home of American Bandstand. The staff has swelled from one to 14; the budget from $35,000 to $1.4 million. The center has 100 clients and last year chalked up $61.4 million in awarded transactions.
Clark is proud and happy. “This is my calling,” she says. “My ministry of entrepreneurship.”
When she turned 50, Clark began thinking about her legacy, “leaving a footprint,” in her words. Her ambition is to “dig deeper into minority entrepreneurship.”
In recent years, the center has evolved from a business incubator to an enterprise center. Fascinated by leadership, Clark has put together what she calls a “leadership kit,” a lunchbox filled with tokens of a leader’s qualities. One is a packet of mustard seeds, symbolic of the power of a small idea, properly nurtured, to move mountains.
“Instead of incubating businesses, I want to incubate leaders,” she says.
Juliet Goodfriend
Juliet Goodfriend was a year shy of 50 when she was compelled to reinvent herself by an accident. While climbing a ladder in a cabin in Maine, she fell and broke her back. The injury to her spinal cord paralyzed her legs.
A runner, skier and dancer, she was devastated. What helped rally her was her business, a fast-growing pharmaceutical marketing research firm that needed her attention. Within six months, she was traveling for business again to places like England and China, this time in a wheelchair.
“Feeling engaged and productive is a very effective antidote to depression,” Goodfriend declares.
In 1999, she sold her company, though she remained for a couple of years as chairman. About this time, she learned that the Bryn Mawr Theater was about to be converted into a health club.
Goodfriend, a graduate and trustee of Bryn Mawr College, was dismayed that the community would lose this tattered but still viable treasure. She decided there must be a way to save it, that it could enjoy a future as a nonprofit education center focused on film.
It took five years to make it happen, and there were some tough patches along the way. Three agreements of sale were drawn up before one stuck. It took $2 million to acquire the building and an additional $1 million to make it presentable. Goodfriend put up money to guarantee the loans.
“I never take no for an answer,” says Goodfriend, who lives in Penn Valley. “I kept at it.”
Her persistence paid off. The Bryn Mawr Film Institute, which opened in March 2005, today has 5,600 members.
In its two theaters, patrons see intelligent, artistic films of the sort shown downtown at the Ritz. The institute offers film education courses to adults and visual literacy programs for schoolkids. The grand entranceway and arcade, now being restored to their original splendor, feature a cafe designed to encourage cinematic conversation.
What was originally conceived as a $4 million project has grown to $9 million. And what was originally supposed to be a short-term act of civic involvement has evolved into a full-time job.
“It’s sometimes overwhelming,” says Goodfriend, who is at the institute seven days a week, day and night. “I’m grateful to have found this project. I can’t imagine what life would be like without it.”
“There's little I can do to change the human condition, but I can make a difference here in Bryn Mawr.”