Real-Life Career Changers

A Navy vet and a former schoolteacher, like many people starting new careers, find much of what they learned in previous ones is applicable, even in a starkly different context

by Emily Keller

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To Eric Green, co-managing a $50 million hedge fund in San Francisco isn't all that different from renovating a hospital in Estonia, which he did 10 years ago while in the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps.

The Detroit native, who served for seven years as a lieutenant in the Navy before going back to school for his MBA, says skills he developed in his first career have transferred well to his new one.

Running a 50-Member Team

"An important component to the success of the mission is to communicate to the team how our work translates directly into a bigger, more-strategic vision of our senior military commanders," says Green, comparing his leadership in Estonia and San Francisco. "I use these same skills now in translating our strategy into our investment process."

Green says that overseeing a 50-member construction team, and working with the local community to build support for the Navy's presence in the northern European nation, helped him understand the importance of attention to detail, and allowed him to develop the risk-management and people skills he needs in his current career.

Green, who has an undergraduate engineering degree from the Naval Academy in Annapolis and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, now spends his days researching investment opportunities in micro-cap equities, communicating with investors, and developing risk-profile models as a managing partner at Osmium Partners, which he joined in early 2005.

Although many of his skills carried over, Green says it has been difficult learning "how to filter the signal from the noise" when it comes to using market data to develop business strategies and pinpoint opportunities for growth. "I don't know if I will ever overcome this problem," says Green, who combats the obstacle by focusing on value-investing news rather than popular business information sources. "Most of my time is trying to hone the investment process, rather than worry about the hot headline."

Bored by Retirement

Karen Tuttle, who became a full-time pharmacy technician at CVS Pharmacy (CVS) in Springfield, Ohio, three years ago, is also recycling the skills she developed in her first career. The former second-grade teacher, who propelled herself back into the workforce because she was bored by retirement, says her experience with parents prepared her to interact with customers. "I know how to deal with people who are not happy," says Tuttle, 60, who taught for 30 years.

Tuttle spends her day filling prescriptions, checking in orders, serving customers at a drive-through window, and cleaning the pharmacy. Her only complaint is the time she spends standing.

"With teaching, the stress was trying to keep the children focused, and at the pharmacy the stress for me is trying to be on my feet all day," says Tuttle. "At this stage of my life, if I really don't like it, I'm not going to be doing it."

Tuttle, like Green, is part of a movement of career changers taking advantage of an increasingly fluid job market to follow their passions and redirect their lives (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/23/07, ""Your Brilliant Second Career".")

Talk to employers in their own language

Dr. Shel Leanne, president of Wilshel, an educational and career-consulting service, says career changers with backgrounds in public policy, engineering, medicine, and computer science can often make smooth transitions to the business world, if they communicate their qualifications to potential employers using business language.