I think it's a great story, about a man who retired from his job as CFO of one of the largest insurance companies in Chicago, got bored playing golf, and decided to drive a limo three times a week to meet interesting people.
In a remarkable coincidence, I heard the same story today about two other people during my visit to the Gilmore Car Museum in Michigan.
I was talking with one of their volunteers, a fellow named Paul, who told me how the museum got started and why it is in Hickory Corners, in the middle of nowhere.
Donald Gilmore was CEO and Chairman of the Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo. When he retired, his wife Genevieve Upjohn Gilmore told him he had better find something interesting to do. They had a summer home on a lake near where the museum is now. Genevieve knew that Donald loved to restore old cars, and she suggested they buy a farm near their lake home and turn it into a museum.
And then Paul told me that when he (Paul) retired, his wife told him the same thing, and that's why he now volunteers at the museum. He gets to tell interesting stories and meet interesting people.
There's a man named Chuck Hutchins who pioneered computer numerical control machining over many decades. He started his career as the first bonafide engineer at a machine tool manufacturing company. He took the job even though the salary was lower than his other offers; the deal was that he got to shadow every other employee in the company for a week each, from the shop floor to management.
He is quite old now, but he published a book a couple years ago describing his experiences in the industry, founding a scrappy startup in the early 60's and growing it to a highly profitable business with thousands of employees. If you like engineering non-fiction, it's called "Hot Tech Cold Steel".
