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AUGUST 4, 2000

MANAGEMENT

Finding Slots for Senior Programmers in Silicon Valley
This 77-year-old entrepreneur matches older techies with short-term jobs


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William S. Payson's idea of hell is "sitting on a porch on a rocking chair." That's why Payson, 77, eschewed retirement at age 65, and moved to Campbell, Calif., to pitch his skills as a marketing consultant in Silicon Valley. The reception from recruiters was cool, to say the least. "As soon as they saw my gray hair, I could see their jaws drop," he recalls.

Like other senior entrepreneurs, those who are driven to start ventures in their 60s and 70s, Payson didn't get mad: He started his own business. It's based on his conviction that a lot of other seniors aren't ready for the rocking chair yet, but neither to do they want full-time jobs. Rather, they'd prefer work on short-term assignments that give them maximum flexibility.

Payson's six-year-old company, Senior Staff Job Information Exchange (www.srstaff.com), seeks to match employers with those restless seniors. He maintains a database of 20,000 computer professionals nationwide, from "novices to "gurus" and 5,000 nontech employees, mostly clerical workers, from Northern California. (He's trying to phase out the nontech placements, although these have generated most of his business and profits so far.)

Employers pay $500 a year to access a specified area of the database, such as COBOL programmers. That membership fee is applied toward a $1,000 placement fee for every job that's filled in that category. Registration is free for employees, who rate their own skills on a scale of one to five. Although the vast majority of employees in the database are over 50, Payson expanded it in 1997 to include programmers as young as 35, ("old" in Silicon Valley) as demand for workers who could handle Y2K problems escalated.

So far, Payson says, his profits have been modest. The company survives by using four, part-time volunteers and operates out of Payson's home. But, in terms of personal publicity for Payson, it has been a bonanza. In 1998, he was invited to testify before the House Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Immigration & Claims. Payson contends that seniors are being shunted aside by companies that would prefer to fill jobs with foreign workers on visas. "I testified that I have more COBOL programmers on the golf course in Phoenix than they've got in all of New Delhi, and my people vote," says Payson, whose car sports the bumper sticker, "Retire? Hell, no. I'm not even tired yet."

That kind of extravagant rhetoric comes naturally to Payson, who created a minor media splash back in 1980 when his marketing company offered to create fictitious founders, a la Colonel Sanders, for companies with lackluster pedigrees. Payson also waxes enthusiastic about the graying of America, which he believes will change how employers view seniors. "The over-50 set are the fastest-growing segment in the U.S. It will take time for employers to come around, but they're going to realize there's no place else for them to go. The world is running out of kids."

Although he's not a techie himself, this senior entrepreneur says he has taken on the plight of older IT workers as a cause celebré because "what turns me on is problem-solving. The programmers are almost inarticulate when it comes to marketing and PR, and I'm trying to put this in terms that business people can understand."

But even Payson admits that it's out-of-date skills, not blind prejudice, that keeps most senior techies from getting hired. The Y2K crisis created a demand for COBOL experts, "and increased our database by tenfold," says Payson. He'd like to funnel those people into jobs converting vintage databases into Web-accessible ones, but that requires a mastery of security codes, which many mature workers don't have, he concedes.

His solution: join forces with an online bookseller -- Fatbrain.com in Santa Clara, Calif. -- to sell instructional materials to these older techies through his Web site. "We receive a small commission, but that's not the point," says Payson. "Our main purpose is to provide refresher training to people who need it" in the most convenient, cost-efficient way possible, he says.

But having current programming skills is just half the battle for older workers, emphasizes Jim Duggan, vice-president and research director of Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn. They have to be able to get along with younger supervisors and colleagues. "The ones who do best are more adaptable. They don't expect instant status but are willing to re-earn it in a new organization."

From an employer's standpoint, Payson's company is "a ready repository for the skills I need," says Charles F. Townsend of LegacyJ Corp., a Pleasanton (Calif.) company that has filled two contract positions from Payson's database. According to Payson, short-term employment is just what most of his people want. "The people who get the most work aren't looking for a career. They want contract consulting positions for several months to a year, and then want to be free to take a cruise or play tennis."

As for Payson, who is redoubling his efforts to build up his placements of tech workers, running his own business in the so-called retirement years is his idea of heaven.


By Stephanie B. Goldberg

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