My Story

I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the small borough of Bradfordwoods.. My dad was a "gentleman farmer", that is, he had a job with Dravo Corporation and owned a 50 acre farm where I grew up. I graduated from North Allegheny High School in 1958 and later graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.

I went through Navy flight training in Pensacola, Florida, and received my wings in 1964. I flew 125 combat missions in Vietnam in the A4 Skyhawk and was the Aide de Camp to Lieutenant General Lewis Walt who commanded all Marines in Vietnam.

Upon my return to the United States, I became a pilot for Trans World Airlines and spent a 30 1/2 year career there. Life was good. I had a great job and a defined benefit retirement plan, which projected that I would eventually retire on about $20,000 per month. I Also obtained my California real estate broker's license.

Life is what happens while you're making other plans. Many of those "happenings" can have a dramatic effect upon one's retirement plan. In the early 80s I went through a divorce and in 1986 TWA went through bankruptcy, resulting in a 40% pay cut for pilots and a devastating restructuring of the retirement plan. It was a time of turmoil for most of the major airlines. The result was that I retired early at age 58 and my TWA pension was picked up by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), which is the government agency that insures failed defined benefit plans. I also ended up with $400,000 in a 401K.

This was the era of the Dot-com boom. Newly formed internet tech companies were attracting a massive amount of attention and funding from venture capitalists and other investors. Unfortunately, it was followed by the Dot-com bust, as many of these companies failed to achieve profitability. My 401K took it in the shorts!

Undaunted, I found an opportunity to activate my real estate broker's license and was able to build an organization of over 300 agents, showing people how to use real estate in their 401Ks. That operation was so successful that in 2008, I reached a monthly income of $60,000! Unfortunately, the individual who was supplying the properties decided that I was making too much money and found another broker who was willing to perform the broker role for about $2000 a month. The suddenness of that maneuver left me with some intractable tax problems and the subsequent economic crash of 2008 ran the real estate market into the ditch.

My real life experiences over the past 25 years of retirement have given me an insight into the difficulties of achieving a comfortable retirement and empathy for those who are struggling or will struggle to make ends meet during the upcoming retirement crisis. That is why I have put together this site and the Facebook Page and Facebook Group. Together we can explore ways to mitigate some of the challenges ahead.