Marc Freedman is lauded by many as the premier thinker and spokesman for engaging the Baby Boomers in public service. His exemplary work stands as a benchmark for the kind of social change Brown students hope to create.

Freedman is founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, as well as co-founded of Experience Corps, the nation's largest nonprofit national service program engaging Americans over 55. At a recent lecture Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work, he shared the stories of model seniors who completed their best work after they had supposedly taken their bow from the working world.

Freedman explained that paradigms have shifted. Retirement could now realistically span three decades due to the extended health and lifespan today’s seniors are fortunate enough to enjoy.  The long-held opinion that seniors should be pushed out of the workforce because their best work was behind them simply isn’t ringing true any longer, and yet the practice continues.

However, many seniors are not content, or affluent enough, to spend their next thirty years on the golf course.  

In Freedman’s book, “Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life”, he writes, “If the old golden years dream was freedom from work, the dream of this new wave is freedom to work—in new ways, on new terms, to new and even more important ends.”

It is predicted that by 2010, nearly 40 percent of the American workforce will begin to reach traditional retirement age, making Baby Boomers the largest, best educated, and healthiest cohort of retirees ever to approach this juncture.  

After finding themselves with too much time on their hands (and in some cases without enough insurance), a growing number of seniors are taking on what Freedman has labeled “encore careers.”

“These encore careers may not last as long as their earlier careers,” says Freedman. “But they weigh as much, they’re just as significant.” What really matters is that their work has personal meaning and it is creating a positive impact on the economy and community. 

But the media are not portraying the situation in such an optimistic light. “You pick up the paper everyday and you read about this long gray wave of greedy geezers who are taking America to the cleaners, caring only about themselves, and gearing up for thirty years of R&R while the fiscal ship goes down,” says Freedman.

On the contrary, Freedman believes that those soon to retire are seeking meaningful work in the places where America needs most help. Education, public service, and non-profit organizations are just a few areas in which there is both a shortage of willing workers and the opportunity to create positive social change. “Here we have a group of people who are poised to do exactly what we need them to do and yet supply and demand are struggling to find each other,” says Freedman.     

While many are pursuing these encore careers now, the trend will have to continue and expand if the nation is to feel its effects. The numbers of those in search of their encore careers will continue to swell for the next decade, but the mindset of employers has to be modified. These retirees are smart, capable, and willing to work and must be treated as such.

Freedman envisions a future where seniors can enroll in discounted educational training in the field they wish to pursue in their second halves of life, among other incentives for their continued contribution. He’s hopeful that these issues will be addressed on a bigger stage in the coming presidential elections and in other public forums.

With “Baby Boomers retiring at a rate of 10,000 a day”, Freedman believes these changes to be an absolute necessity. “We cannot afford to write-off the most experienced segment of the population at a juncture where they want to contribute and we need them in these key sectors,” says Freedman.