Consulting Gold For Golden-agers

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General Douglas MacArthur's dictum notwithstanding, old soldiers don't always fade away. Take the case of 72-year-old Colonel Carl Y. Farrell, U.S. Army, retired. In 1960, after a distinguished 28-year career as an army engineer in the Southwest Pacific, Alaska, and Texas, Colonel Farrell retired -- only to begin a second career as a business executive. Then in 1973, after 13 years as senior vice-president for business development at Santa Fe-Pomeroy Inc., an international engineering and contracting company, Colonel Farrell retired again -- and began a third career as an independent consultant. Now, 10 years later, the colonel is launching yet another career, as chairman and one of three co-founders of Encore Consultants Registry Inc., a new organization designed to tap the considerable skills of America's retired and semiretired executives.

The idea for Encore was born in a conversation late in 1981 between Colonel Farrell and Earl T. Van Geem, a friend and former colleague from Santa Fe-Pomeroy. Both were retired. Both had tried their hand at consulting. And both felt that a major problem for retired executives anxious to consuIt was that, in Van Geem's words, "a retired person has no way to market his expertise He only gets assignments from his former company."

Encore Consultants, established late last year in Palo AIto, Calif., was their solution. While there have been other organizations to get retired executives into consulting jobs -- the now-inactive Textron Advisory Group, for former executives of Textron, and Service Corps of Retired Executives (see INC., July 1979) -- Encore is the first such organization to be open to a broad group of consultants who are paid for their efforts. Retired and semiretired executives, scientists, and engineers who meet the criteria of sufficient education, professional reputation, or hands-on experience, can register with Encore free of charge, with their name and resume to be stored in the company's computer bank. Clients in need of people with specific skills will be forwarded the appropriate resumes. They will select a consultant and then negotiate fees, based on the individual independent registrant's demands and Encore's 10% referral fee. The company gets its expert, and the would-be consultant gets a chance to expand his opportunities beyond what contracts and affiliations he might have made before retiring.

Although just starting up, Encore already has some 100 consultants in its computer file. Marketing will be aimed at U.S. government agencies, private industry, and foreign governments, with particular attention to the Agency for International Development (AID) and the World Bank. Clients will be solicited through advertising and direct mail -- "plus," Van Geem says, "we're going to get out and ring some doorbells in Washington this winter."

"We don't expect to make a lot of money out of this," Colonel Farrell says "but we've already made as much money as we need. Instead we think of it as a way to help retired people--and to help the country, too."