Adjusting to Retirement

Is retirement a trauma or an escape? For Lewis Fitzgerald it was perhaps half shock, half challenge. Being retired at age 48 inevitably meant a second career. He had the mental resources to cope with his new phase of life, and a revisit with him nearly four years after the original interview revealed that he was managing reasonably well in his new venture as entrepreneur “I started with Steel after graduation from Lehigh. The Loop [an eight-month program of acquainting new personnel with the plant operations] had started, and some years later they had a small graduating class. They wanted to fill the auditorium in order to impress the vice presidents who were coming to speak, and that’s when I got the opportunity to go through the Loop program. It was a good experience. I had already been working for them for ten or twelve years.