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AFTER MY FIRST TWO years of studying electrical engineering at Virginia Tech, I got an internship at Frito-Lay working at its research headquarters in Irving, Texas, far from my New Jersey home. I was paid handsomely, treated well, had access to state-of-the-art computer equipment—and was miserable.
Some of that stemmed from spending the summer away from friends and family. But I was also having a career crisis even before my career began.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to work as an engineer for the next 40 years. I felt the stellar internship I’d scored was the best situation I could hope for in engineering, yet here I was profoundly unhappy. My grades were pretty good but I knew the dreaded junior year in engineering was almost upon me and my grade point average (GPA) was sure to suffer. I got the idea that I should explore becoming a doctor while my grades were still high enough for medical school admission.
I ended up cutting my three-month internship short by a month. A small liberal arts college with a high medical school acceptance rate told me over the phone that it would take me. My parents were a little stunned by this radical change, which seemed to come out of nowhere.
My pre-medical studies didn’t work out. Although I had a 4.0 GPA in my first semester at the new college, I had to drop organic chemistry because the workload proved too much for me. By the end of the semester, I was barely functional due to stress and anxiety, and I knew a career in medicine wasn’t for me. My second semester at the school was a disaster. I dropped all but three classes and was no longer even classified as a fulltime student. I was a college junior without a clue.
For a brief time, I thought about becoming a math teacher, but concluded that wasn’t right for me, either. Eventually, having failed to come up with a better alternative, I decided to return to Virginia Tech to complete my engineering degree. At least I’d be able to support myself as an engineer, I reasoned. I finished my degree and took a job at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania.
When I first started working at Peach Bottom, I carpooled with an engineer who was stressed by his job. On the drive to the plant, he’d say things like “28 years until I can retire.” That’s an awfully long time to be unhappy. A few years later, he made a career change and left the company.
Throughout my career, I’ve thought about retirement. Early on, I didn’t understand pensions. I thought the concept of a pension was that, if you put in enough years, you’d continue getting your full salary after you stopped working. The first time I saw my pension statement, a couple of years into my job, I realized that wasn’t the case at all.
In my 20s and 30s, retirement was far in the future, and I had more pressing concerns, such as job security and taking care of my family. At 29, I married Lisa and it was only then that I started saving a significant portion of my salary in the company’s 401(k) plan. When I was 32, I was offered a voluntary separation severance payment based on my salary and years of service. The amount was $30,000, which would be equal to a little over $60,000 in today’s dollars. I would also have been allowed to keep my pension, which would be worth a little under $300 a month when I turned 55. A few of my colleagues took the package, which was offered to all of the company’s nuclear workers, but I wasn’t tempted.
My career progressed, and my responsibilities increased in my late 30s and 40s. Although retirement was in the back of my mind, my real concern was financial independence. These were years in which I contributed substantial sums to the 401(k) while simultaneously saving money for my children’s eventual college education. But retirement would periodically be thrust back into my consciousness. The company regularly offered early retirement packages to employees 50 or older during the 1990s and early 2000s. I figured my turn would come if I could hold out until age 50.
Around 2001, I was forced to think about retirement again when the company offered the option to convert to a cash-balance pension. By this time, I had 16 years of service. It was a period of change in the industry and, even though I hoped to end my career at Peach Bottom, I didn’t know if forces beyond my control would prevent that.
I gave up my traditional pension in favor of a cash-balance pension with an opening credit of around $135,000—a decision I discussed at length in an earlier article. In retrospect, I would have done better staying with the traditional pension, because my career with the company lasted 38 years. But at the time, there was no way of knowing that.
I’d clocked 30 years at the plant by the time I turned 53. Around that time, I suffered long periods of weariness. I felt like I just wanted to be done. On the whiteboard in my office, I scrawled a retirement target date aligned with my 55th birthday. At that age, I’d be entitled to reduced retirement health insurance benefits, so that seemed like a good goal to reach for.
I created various spreadsheets covering my retirement plan. For a number of years, I tracked all our expenses in one of those spreadsheets, so I’d have a handle on how much Lisa and I spent and where the money went. Along with the various finance-oriented spreadsheets, I added pages to help me brainstorm activities in retirement. One spreadsheet is solely dedicated to identifying the many parks and nature preserves in my area available for hiking. Whenever an idea about something I’d like to do in retirement popped into my head, I’d add it to the appropriate spreadsheet.
When I turned 55, I knew retirement was an option, which was psychologically freeing. I still had one year of my son’s college expenses to pay for, so it seemed prudent to stick around for another year. Also, I was enjoying my job more than I had a few years earlier.
Five months after I turned 55, I was able to shift into a newly formed group that focused on large capital projects, and my job satisfaction increased even more. I enjoyed my work and the team I was on, so I kept at it. I set a new target to retire at age 59. A few months before my 59th birthday, my manager recommended me for a promotion to senior staff engineer, which was the highest rung on the company’s technical career ladder. Once again, I put my retirement plans on hold.
I retired Sept. 5 of this year, right after Labor Day. There were financial reasons for my decision. But more important, after 38 years at one place, it felt like the right time to start a new chapter. I took off most of this past summer, winding down my considerable store of vacation days. It’s been fun getting into a completely different routine, one that has involved more time with family, more time in local parks, a bit of travel, and a reactivated library card. I also used some of my newly found free time to start writing for a website called HumbleDollar. You may have heard of it.
Earlier, I wrote a HumbleDollar piece about a magazine article that for almost three decades has influenced my thinking about retirement. If you read that piece, you probably won’t be surprised that, after retiring, I’ve accepted another position. I don’t want to say too much about it, since it’s just beginning, but I will say it is part-time, fully remote and in my area of expertise.
I enjoy mentoring the next generation of nuclear power engineers and being able to share knowledge I’ve gained over the decades. My new position should allow me to continue doing that. It’s funny. A guy who almost gave up on his engineering career before it even started has turned into a guy who, almost 40 years later, just can’t seem to give it up. As with many of life’s journeys, you just never know what lies ahead until you arrive.
Ken Cutler lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has worked as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than 38 years. There, he has become an informal financial advisor for many of his coworkers. Ken is involved in his church, enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife Lisa, is a shortwave radio hobbyist, and has a soft spot for cats and dogs. Check out Ken’s earlier articles.
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While in my industrial engineering program (electrical was considered the hardest with the smartest students), I realized I did not want to sit behind a desk all day but work with people and with my hands. So I added the necessary courses to satisfy dental school entry. Being an older student it did not sit well with me that my organic chemistry class had 16 as a passing score out of 90! My annoyance with not being taught anything of value but evaluate my ability to memorize was my downfall for my first attempt. There where many grumblings amongst the 200 students because one student consistently got scores of 80 thereby moving the curve up from 12!
Next month I’ll have been retired for a year at the age of 75 after 41 years of practice. I admire those with pensions, paid vacations, and paid sick leave, Paying off practice loans, providing staff with med insurance and retirement monies, dealing with insurance companies, and the public are some of the downsides of private practice. As I look back through all that transpired I am very satisfied with my career change, the satisfaction of the quality of the care I provided, and all the interesting people I had the opportunity to treat.
If the US Navy had trained me to be a jet mechanic instead of a reciprocating engine mechanic, I would have retired maybe 10 years ago with a pension from one of the airlines! 😊
J S: Thanks for sharing this. Very interesting career journey. I got a 53 on my first (and only) Organic Chem test while the average was 51. I knew it would go downhill from there. Congratulations on your long, successful practice and on your retirement. You should write a HD article if you haven’t done so.
I lived a scant 100 miles up the Susquehanna River when Three Mile Island overheated. My wife and I had taken a friendly couple to see a new movie entitled, “The China Syndrome” which worked its unsettling magic on us. We left the theater, got into my car for the 30 mile drive back home and the radio announced, “There has been an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.” We all looked at each other. It was a quiet drive home.
Now, I don’t much believe in coincidences, but wow…
I think I’ll go watch that movie again. And maybe buy a lottery ticket, eh?
Just kidding. I like nuclear.
Congratulations on your retirement, Ken.
Ha! Glad that experience didn’t sour you on nuclear energy permanently. Thanks for your comments and the congrats.
Welcome to retirement, hope you have fun!
I was offered the choice of staying with the pension plan or taking a buy out. However, I was only a couple of years short of being able to take early retirement, with pension and medical. The annuity I could have bought with the lump sum was very, very much smaller than the pension so I stuck with that and haven’t regretted it, although I do regret the lack of a COLA.
Thanks Kathy, so far so good. Usually those buy-out offers strongly favor the company, not the employee.
Congrats on your retirement, Ken!
Thank you, Doc!
Had to laugh. When I started colkege there were hundreds of pre dent and pre med students. When I was a senior there were about 10 of us. Decrease all due to Organic chemistry.
My husband was pre-med…until O-Chem.
A great blessing of the ability to save for an early retirement is not having to work past the goalpost. I stayed on at work an additional decade beyond my target date. Knowing I could leave at any time helped me to manage job stress and to accomplish career milestones. Like for you, the reactivated library card and the hiking adventures are among the true joys of retirement.
A community park is right next to my local library. Last week I spent a glorious afternoon in the park reading the book I had just checked out. A definite retirement win. Thanks for sharing.
I just read the previous cash balance article. When you decide, I hope you I’ll tell us – annuity or lump sum.
Don’t ask me because when I put in a CB plan at the utility across the river from yours, I urged everyone to take annuity, but sadly that income stream is rarely chosen.
I think you may sleep better with two steady income streams plus the 401k.
Dick, you’ll be happy to know that I am picking the annuity option, starting in January when the August 2023 section 417(e) interest rates kick in. Up until this year the annuity option was not attractive because of the low conversion rates. 2023 is a pretty good year to take the annuity option but 2024 is substantially better due to the elevated rates. It still is a significant reduction from what I would have received under the traditional pension formula, but I realize I am fortunate to have a pension at all.
👍
Ken, I like the theme of passing on your knowledge. Being useful not only brings a feeling of satisfaction, but some of us think it is a responsibility.
A great reminder to keep an open mind and be willing to accept options as they arise.
It’s always interesting looking back at the forks in the road in your career. By default I ended up in the insurance business for 40+ years and it worked out well, but what I really enjoyed was the people. That really made the job(s) interesting for me.
Great article, Ken. Enjoy your “second” career.
Thanks for reading and your comments. Like you, I was fortunate to work with a bunch of great people. I continue to stay in touch with a lot of them, including a number that retired years before me.