Old-Fashioned Work Ethic Welcomed : Agency Opens Door for Retirees to Move Back Into Job Market

When Bob Rheinhart needed to expand his office recently, he didn’t have to look far for expertise. The architect and skilled craftspersons he needed all were on his payroll--and they all were retired.

So are the office workers at Rheinhart’s 11-year-old Retiree Skills Inc., a temporary-help agency handling people over age 50. Ads on buses, cabs and elsewhere say it offers employers “Experience! Skills! Dependability!”

Age Barrier to Jobs Cited

“I don’t care how many age discrimination laws there are, age is the main reason people over 50 aren’t hired when they seek work,” says Rheinhart, a 68-year-old retired stockbroker. “We don’t guarantee we’ll get anyone a job, but on the other hand we don’t charge them anything either.”

Jack Shine and Roscoe Lacy, both 70, have been with Retiree Skills almost from its start 11 years ago.

“I’d be lost without something productive to do, and with the cost of living what it is the money don’t hurt anything either,” said Shine, who ran his own sporting goods store for years. Now he paints houses, limits his work week to 24 hours and will continue “as long as I can climb a ladder.”

Lacy, who spent 30 years in the Navy, averages 24 hours a week, filling in for school custodians who are sick or on vacation. “I’ll do it as long as I can get around. When you’re active it keeps you young.”

Retiree Skills offers workers in more than 200 job classifications, including secretaries, engineers, accountants, electricians, word processors, chemists, plumbers, carpenters, mail-room personnel, equipment operators, masons, computer programmers, auditors and laborers.

“There’s even a professional clown,” Rheinhart said.

The National Council on Aging says it knows of no similar group. Most temporary-help agencies specialize in categories like office workers; most employment organizations for retirees are limited to one type of professional.

Workers remain on the payroll of Retiree Skills, saving the temporary employer Social Security, sick pay, retirement, vacation and insurance costs, which can total a third or more of the average payroll. Employers are billed for actual time at a rate above what workers are paid, which Rheinhart says is near the area’s prevailing wage for their skill. The minimum is $4 an hour.

More than 300 companies have used Retiree Skills, and Rheinhart says he has found work for more than 2,500 people. About 800 now are registered.

“Most came to us originally as a last resort. Can you believe the morale boost for someone who’s almost at the point of feeling useless and then finding he’s got talent that people are looking for and are willing to pay for? And the flip side is that the people who use them are getting genuine bargains. Aside from their skills, their old-fashioned work ethic is so different from what’s fashionable today among younger people,” Rheinhart said.

“I have a very positive reaction to Retiree Skills,” said Barbara Walker, office manager for Desert Analytics, a small testing laboratory.

Harold Koenig, a retired chemical engineer, did so well as a temporary lab technician that he was hired as a regular, working “somewhat less than 40 hours a week” because he wants Mondays off.

Another worker, a 58-year-old banker forced out in a corporate realignment, was sent to a savings and loan and stayed eight years. He had applied for work at 60 places, Rheinhart said, including the one that finally kept him on.

Retiree Skills keeps people on Social Security advised about how much they may earn without penalties. Those 65 to 70 can make $8,800 this year and still receive all benefits. Under 65, it’s $6,480. Generally, $1 in benefits is lost for each $2 earned over the limit. At 70, full benefits are available regardless of earnings.

Rheinhart, who had started a life insurance company in Dayton, Ohio, and a brokerage in Columbus, retired to Tucson to play golf. “But you can play just so much golf without getting bored. Most of the people I met were older and I was hearing two things from them--they either didn’t have enough to do, or, if they did have things to do, they didn’t have enough money to do them.

“About that time the National Council on Aging put on a TV commercial that showed an empty rocking chair that was in motion, with the suggestion it was time for the elderly to get off their rocker.

“Those two things gave me the idea to start Retiree Skills.”

He hopes eventually to franchise the Retiree Skill idea and has trademarked its slogan: “From Inactivity to Productivity.”