Retirement

It was June of 1974, and I was sitting at my new desk in the basement of the Chicago Board of Trade building.  Twenty-four years old and fresh out of the University of Illinois, I was just starting my career as a financial analyst with the CBOT.

That was thirty-seven years ago.  Last week, I told my new boss that I was going to call it a career at the end of September.  Today I told my peers -- the VPs of Sales and Operations.

We have started the process of moving Zenith Cutter from a position of trying to sell the company to one of forging ahead for the future.  And the future does look bright for the new owners, and I sincerely wish them well.

But with the change in ownership comes a change in my responsibilities -- namely, I will have less of them in the future.  Several of the important things that I have been doing will now be done at the Corporate level by my new "dotted-line" boss.  Banking and auditing relations, insurance and risk management, cash management, and part of the information services function will now be handled by the Corporate VP of Finance.  What Zenith really needs now is a Division Controller, not a CFO like me.  I have been a CFO at three different companies over the last 20 years, and I feel that a change at this point will be better for everyone.

Secondly, I told myself long ago that when work stopped being fun, it was time to go.  Needless to say, between the economic downturn of 2009 and the drive to put the company up for sale, the last 2 years have not been the most pleasant in my career.

Lastly, we have the desire and wherewithal to do it.  Both Gemma and I have become tired of the winters here in the midwest and are anxious to move to The Villages permanently.  We also both have relatively good health at the moment (knock on wood!).  And we have been fortunate enough in our lives that we are able to swing it financially.

As I said in an earlier post, I want to document our road to retirement.  Maybe this particular posting is a bit of therapy for me to rationalize why we are doing it :)  Thanks to everyone for the tons of support and love during of our life here in Rockford and throughout our careers.

Click here for more pictures of the construction as of 7-2-2011.