Fresh Start: Rick Kirkpatrick used to be a high school shop teacher. Now he's got his own business doing home renos
Financial Post Business Magazine, October 2006

If you live in London, Ont., and you ask around for a contractor to renovate your house, don't be surprised if you get referred to Three Retired Teachers. The company, officially known as TRT Construction, is made up of three men who used to work for the Thames Valley District School Board - one taught elementary school, one was a computer instructor, and the third taught shop to high school and elementary kids. These days, however, the trio spend their days renovating kitchens and bathrooms, and designing and building decks and cupboards. Like an increasing number of ageing Baby Boomers, they are taking advantage of early retirement programs to get out of their stable jobs, and then transforming their passions and hobbies into flexible second careers.

Back in 1998, Three Retired Teachers' Rick Kirkpatrick was content teaching shop and doing computer consulting for the school board. That year, a colleague and friend suddenly died from leukemia. Shortly after, another colleague died from cancer. Both of them had vowed to travel when they retired, but never had the chance. Kirkpatrick, just 54 years old at the time, decided he didn't want to put his future on hold. "I took early retirement," he says. "I thought, 'Why not travel now and work on the side to supplement my income?'"

Kirkpatrick, now 62, spent almost a year relaxing and working on projects around the house, when he heard a local landscape architect was having trouble finding reliable, skilled contractors to build decks and fancy sheds. Kirkpatrick brought in photos of projects he had worked on. He began getting some small jobs from the landscaper. Needing help, he called two other retired teachers who also loved renovating. Soon they began calling themselves "Three Retired Teachers" and printed up business cards to let potential customers know about their services. "The name is easy for people to remember," Kirkpatrick says. "That's good, because people find out about us through word of mouth."

The company gets steady offers to do projects, but the ex-teachers try not to get too busy. They work four days a week and they don't accept every gig they're offered. "If we don't think we'll enjoy working for a client, or if in the past we haven't enjoyed working for them, we say, 'No, we're not interested,'" explains Kirkpatrick. They also avoid jobs that require too much physical labour - they no longer do roofs, and they make sure drywall is delivered into the room they're working on so they don't have to haul it into the house.

Three Retired Teachers doesn't bring in a huge amount of money - Kirkpatrick says each of them nets less than $10,000 a year - but, with his pension and lower taxes, he has almost as much money as when he was teaching.

Of course, the best perk of his new job is the ability to travel when he wants to. Kirkpatrick has an RV and last year he spent three months in Florida with his wife. This year, they're thinking about going to Texas.

At age 62, Kirkpatrick is still in excellent health, and he says he hasn't given a single thought to retiring from his second career. "We enjoy doing it," he says. "We get satisfaction from designing things. Then we get to make them, and someone else pays the bills."