Redifining Life After "Real Work"

Wow, I always thought I would re-package myself as I reached the "golden years" to become a little more like J. Buffett would appreciate; no  church, long hair, no underwear, etc.  However, I have realized that my parents, bless their harts, began my repackaging a long time ago.  I find myself just becoming more like myself, with a little more freedom to express feelings without protecting my employer, with due respect to my current employer, me. 
While I am enjoying my life now, I can't help but consider what comes next.  I have always had a vision for a new career.  From football coach and biology teacher to school principal during the integration days in Mississippi, my early professional experiences launched me into a life of what I recall as most challenging and satisfying.  For some reason, I accepted a position at my Alma Mater (Mississippi State University) in the development office and spent the next thirteen years helping fund public education's insatiable thirst for private funding.  I served at MSU, University of Pittsburgh, Converse College and Erskine College.  Somewhere along the way I completed a doctorate in educational leadership.  Mrs. Latta, my senior math teacher, would be mortified, along with Mrs. Hutchinson and a number of my other high school teachers.  I remember Mrs. Latta's exact words to me one day, "Jim Hemphill you are climbing fools hill just as fast as you can".  I fail to remember the incident that precipitated the tirade. 

Development in higher education gave way to my foray into the world of political informantcy.  Sounds a little "white water or watergatish" but actually it was one of the most rewarding posts of my career.  I served as the special assistant to the Mississippi superintendent of education and for four years my life revolved around providing information to our Mississippi legislators concerning proposed legislation hopefully beneficial to the students of our state.  As a registered lobbyist, I learned how much I didn't know about the legislative process of our country and especially Mississippi.  Through my experience in working with the legislature, I became absolutely appreciative of our legislative process; it works.  It may not be pretty and I didn't like it much sometimes but it works.  Just remember, never watch sausage or legislation being made.

Now, my dear father is sure that I simply can not hold a steady job or Mrs. Latta was right and I'm getting close to the top of "fools mountain", but at the end of my four year stint working as a lobbyist, I retired early from the State of Mississippi and started the Victor Group, Inc.  My consulting business that, after a time away to work in the student loan industry, I have re-invented and is operating today.  One of my first consulting contracts involved working in the non-profit student loan industry (I knew a lot about non-profits and very little about the student loan industry) and through a happenstance meeting with the CEO of a national top-ten student loan group (who thought I knew a lot more about the industry than I actually did) became the manage of one of his businesses in Little Rock, AR.  Crazy as it sounds, the business did very well and after five years there he asked me to manage one of his corporate business divisions in Knoxville, TN.  After a couple of years, our nation's new president did away with private/public student loan cooperatives and I re-opened the Victor Group, Inc.

The Victor Group, Inc sounds like a number of consultants working in a intellectual "think tank" or a task force focused on solving the economic crisis or the Gulf oil spill.  It could be a team or even a couple of sharp operatives managing a political campaign or controlling damage in the wake of an unsavory corporate time of turmoil but no; it's just me and the memory of Mrs. Latta's perception and timely proclamation of my life's focus. 

Retrospective is a common phenomenon that, as we mature, becomes an important manner in which to convey the importance of our life's accomplishments.  As the years go by, the more clearly we can recall the details of our prowess as athletes, businessmen or women or other experiences important for our unknowing associates or prospective clients to be aware.  Mine get clearer each day.