Switching Roles

By Laura Koss-Feder

"I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing," Henry Miller admits with a laugh. In fact, Miller, 58, a former Xerox Corp. executive who was downsized two years ago, isn't even in the right realm. After spending more than three decades in the impersonal, male-dominated corporate world, Miller now finds himself in women's territory--and he's having the time of his life. He is running a business in a traditionally female-run field: the boarding, training and grooming of dogs. His Boom Towne Canine Center in Farmington, N.Y., is heading for 2005 sales of $400,000 and employs up to 15 people, depending on demand.

"I should be retired and sitting on a rocking chair somewhere in North Carolina," says Miller, who has trained and shown various breeds of dogs as a hobby for 30 years and owns eight--seven Papillons and a Bernese mountain dog. "But this is my dream and something I love doing, even if it's not typical for guys my age." Or, he might add, for guys, period.

Miller is far from alone. Baby boomers who for one reason or another retire early are increasingly starting reverse-gender businesses. The phenomenon is growing at a rate of about 20% a year, estimates John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based international outplacement firm. The boomers, often disenchanted with corporate America, are spurred by a desire to control their own destiny. In striking out on their own, they feel a powerful sense of liberation and of not giving a rip what others think--two emotions that tend to accompany aging, observes Debra Mandel, a Los Angeles psychologist who counsels seniors. And they recognize that if they are going to take a leap, now is the time to do it.

"When you're younger, you do what you think you should be doing to support your family, become established in the workplace and fit in with the crowd," says Gene Fairbrother, a Dallas-based small-business consultant for the National Association for the Self-Employed. "When you get older, these conventionalities don't seem to matter anymore, and you feel more comfortable doing what you want--as long as you enjoy it and can make some money at it."

The upshot is that older men are running day-care centers, word-processing firms and pet businesses and senior women are operating farming companies, residential-construction firms and plumbing outfits. Ellen Freudenheim, author of Looking Forward: An Optimist's Guide to Retirement, attributes many of the reversals to what she calls gender envy. "Women want the power that the men have, and men want to experience the better interpersonal relationships that females have," says Freudenheim.

Moreover, what is normally preferable in mega companies--youth and employees working in traditional gender roles--is less important in the world of the self-employed, points out Michael Stull, who directs a center for entrepreneurship at California State University at San Bernardino. "Clients and customers don't care if you have gray hair and if you're a man running a business in a woman's world or vice versa," Stull says. "They want to know that you have experience and that you can do the job better than anyone else, and often prefer someone who is older and more seasoned."

Case in point: children and parents who attend Robert Cole's Little Gyms don't care that Cole is a 73-year-old international tax lawyer working in a field that attracts mostly women in their 20s. Cole has four Little Gym franchises in the northern Virginia area. The outlets offer a variety of motor-skills and developmental programs for children up to age 12. Throughout his career, Cole has wanted to work more directly with people instead of with large corporations; he rediscovered his love for children after becoming a grandfather seven years ago. "I don't care what people think," he says. "I'm really enjoying watching these kids grow and develop, and I like working with the staff. It is so different from international tax law, and that helps keep it new and refreshing for me."

As Gene Fairbrother notes, if you're going into a reverse-gender business--especially a bit later in life--it is almost essential that you at least have some background in a related field to get funding and be taken seriously by clients, suppliers and peers. That is especially true if you are starting a business from scratch, as opposed to buying into a franchise, as Cole did. Role-reversing boomers need to utilize all the contacts they have made over the years to help attract customers. They may find more acceptance than they would in a corporate setting, but they will still have to work harder than the competitors who are the traditional gender.

For instance, Marla Letizia, 52, was able to use her background as a television reporter to help launch her business, Mobile Billboards of Las Vegas. The four-year-old company, with sales of $1.5 million and 30 employees, features billboards on a fleet of seven trucks. The mobile-billboard industry, which is 99% male run, was new and exciting to Letizia and seemed to offer an entrepreneur a lot of potential for growth. "People thought I was crazy, a girly-girl like me who is careful with her hair and makeup working with truckers and going into such a 'guy' kind of business," says Letizia, who has two grown children. "But I don't paint, garden or sew, and I wanted to make my mark on the world in a way that made sense to me, even if not to everyone else."

Jonell Chavez, 49, was able to draw on a lifetime of valuable experience when she bought JD's Farm and Ranch, a hardware and farming store, nearly two years ago. Chavez, who grew up on a farm, had been working in the Moriarty, N.M., store since 1984, doing everything from loading cattle feed and ordering supplies to waiting on customers. When the owner of the shop wanted to sell, Chavez saw a perfect opportunity for herself. She didn't want to be out of a job, wasn't ready to retire and hoped to stay in a business that she had grown to love.

Her background was crucial when she was seeking acquisition financing, which she ultimately obtained from Business Loan Express LLC, a New York City--based small-business lender that provides loans of up to $5 million to companies nationwide. "Even though there are no women that I know of running a hardware/farming store," says Chavez, "I was able to capitalize on my knowledge of this field to get a loan and also gain credibility with my vendors."

Chavez enjoys presiding over her 10,000-sq.-ft. store and 35,000 sq. ft. of storage buildings, providing her customers with everything from hay to plumbing supplies to power tools. But in addition, like all baby boomers who have plunged into unconventional fields, she relishes the novelty of her position. "It's kind of a kick," she says, "that I stand out from the pack as a woman in a man's world at this point in my life."