Tom Hardy,
IDSA
Upon retirement from a long design career at IBM, I established my "design strategist" consulting business, working out of Stamford, Connecticut. In my case, the act of "retiring" was actually career "rewiring". While the broad and global experiences at IBM were challenging and fulfilling, they were within a relatively narrow industry segment. Consequently, my "rewired" career objective was to experience working with a variety of companies, organizations and institutions across different industries.
My consulting business is a one-person operation and I am privileged to have worked on interesting projects with a diverse range of corporate clients and institutions, including collaboration with several design firms. While the simplicity of a one-person office limits the number of concurrent projects, such a limitation enables a high caliber of selectivity.
In summary, the opportunity of working on diverse projects has made my post-corporate "rewiring" experience very satisfying. While there are risks involved in trying something new, the rewards from successful realization are well worth the effort.
Additional bio information can be found on my website -- www.designstrategist.com