Company's 401(k) Plan.
01 January 2011
For Bob and Barbara Schmitz, “everyday is Saturday except for Sunday.” At least, that’s how Bob explains retirement. “We planned well for retirement,” says Bob. “We always tried to live on one salary and bank the other salary.” The couple is now reaping the rewards of their smart financial decisions and enjoying every moment of retirement.
Bob and Barb’s story begins in the small town of Antioch, Illinois, where Bob asked his future wife to the high school homecoming dance. Barb agreed to the date, but that would be the last one they would have for another nine years. Barb had big plans for getting out of the small town of 1,800 people and worried that Bob was content to stay close to home.
Bob did stay close to home until the age of 21, when he realized that it was time to get serious about the future and go to college. With only $400 in his pocket and his newly acquired bartending skills, Bob headed off to California to attend school, which he funded with various bartending jobs.
While Bob was attending college, Barb moved to Chicago. She became a nurse and later settled into a career as a flight attendant with United Airlines. At the time, flight attendants who worked on overseas flights had to have a nursing certification. United Airlines moved Barb to California to work the San Francisco-to-Honolulu route. For 34 years, Barb flew on domestic and international flights with the airline.
After college, Bob took a position in private industry with Hallmark Cards. During the early days of his career, he ran into a friend from his hometown who mentioned that Barb was in California. Bob lost no time in looking her up—nine years after their last date. The two re-connected and were married one year later.
After a successful career with Hallmark Cards, Bob left the company when the offices moved to Kansas City. Instead of relocating, he made the leap from private industry to government, where he accepted a position with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Bob spent nearly 18 years with the CDCR stationed at Folsom Prison. Twelve-and-a-half of those years were spent overseeing the Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired. The project hand-selected prisoners to provide services to the disabled, such as creating books on tape, translating books into Braille for the visually impaired, and providing closed captioning for the hearing impaired. Today, the prison is responsible for creating 25% of all the Braille for the blind in California. The prisoners also help create Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-compliant websites for organizations such as the Department of Rehabilitation, which has resulted in the creation of jobs for the disabled. The program at Folsom has helped thousands of visually and hearing impaired people and created the academic tools necessary for students like Amelia Diaz (See November’s Inspiration of the Month: Amelia Diaz) to attend regular high school and college classes instead of special education classes.
Bob’s work at Folsom Prison has not only helped the disabled, it has also seen tremendous success with the prisoners who participate in the project. Since inception, 23 prisoners who have participated in the program have been paroled, and not one of them has returned to prison—an astonishing statistic considering that nearly three out of every four prisoners paroled return to prison. The communication and social skills the prisoners learn in the program provide them with the skills they need to land jobs with community colleges and the Department of Education. Two of the prisoners paroled from the program went on to become self-made millionaires, and four have been recognized by the Library of Congress as the world’s best Braille translators of music. As Bob explains, “Many of the prisoners were bright, but they never had direction or knew they were bright. This program provided them the direction they needed.”
In December 2008, at the age of 61½, Bob decided to join his wife in semi-retirement. Barb had retired from United Airlines in March 2003 and has since returned to work as a part-time, on-call nurse two days a week at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff. A self-proclaimed workaholic, Bob was afraid of retirement, but his wife convinced him it was time to start travelling. The couple now travels three to four months of the year in their RV. Barb plans to fully retire sometime in the next year, and the couple will focus on building a new home on the 3.6 acres they have purchased in North Auburn. In the meantime, Bob stays busy with the Elks Lodge, Lions Club, and Sons in Retirement (SIR), as well as volunteering with non-profit organizations whenever possible. “I believe the key to happiness is giving back to the community,” says Bob. “That, and a happy marriage.”
In May, the couple celebrated their 36-year anniversary. Bob says that if he had to do it all again, he would, “marry her all over again.” Barb and Bob have three daughters, Courtney, 31, Natalie, 29, and Whitney, 26, but are grandchildren-less for the moment.
Bob speaks for himself and his wife when he says that they love every minute of retirement. Both Bob and Barb are grateful they made the financial decisions they did early in life to get where they are today.