Another one of the perks of being a County employee is that you are invited to attend quarterly speaker presentations hosted by The Riverside County Leadership Network. On July 30th the speaker will be Marc Freedman who is the founder and CEO of Civic Ventures—a think tank helping society achieve the greatest return on experience.
Marc asks: “How will the largest, healthiest, best-educated and longest-living generation in American history spend the second half of their working lives?”
He explains, “There is an untapped workforce of practical idealistic boomers looking (not for a retirement career) but to change occupations for a more meaningful second career—an “Encore Career” —a career where someone can earn income, find new meaning, and use accumulated experience in ways that have a positive impact on society.
Encore Careers can also fill a set of talent shortages that threaten to compromise economic production. Encore Careers represents the best use of the accumulated experience of the baby-boomer population. Boomers will do these jobs if they feel they are making a genuine impact, or if their time isn’t wasted and their experience is put to good use.”
Promotion for his presentation challenges, “Learn how to create the on-ramps to work that matters, and embrace this talent.”
Marc earned his props when he spearheaded 1) the creation of the Experience Corps, America’s largest nonprofit national service program engaging individuals over 55, and 2) the Purpose Prize, the nation’s biggest investment in older social innovators. Not only has he been recognized by Fast Company magazine in 2007 & 2008, as one or the nation’s leading social entrepreneurs, he has been honored with numerous awards and fellowships. Marc Freedman is a graduate of Swarthmore College, has an MBA from Yale University, and was a visiting Fellow of Kings College, University of London.
The First 200 County employees to Arrive at this session will Receive Marc’s Book: “Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life”.
Marc Notes: Tens of millions of baby boomers are entering a period of their lives between midlife and the onset of true old age. For most, this period will not only be a new stage of life, but also of work.
I wrote this book to provide a vision of hope—not only for their own fulfillment, but for a nation where a full quarter of the population will soon be over sixty. It is a vision drawn from interviews with hundreds of people in their fifties and sixties in search of a calling in the second half of life.
These conversations left me with the sense that I was glimpsing something of historic proportions — that this is what it must have been like to travel the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s interviewing women breaking through to new roles at work, in the process changing the nature of work for everyone.
Don’t you wish you could be there to pick up a copy of the book and hear Marc speak? Well then, click on “How to Apply” in the left menu and follow the directions.