Burton and Doris Kreitlow

Burton Kreitlow, PhD and Doris Kreitlow, MS: In 1975 Burton Kreitlow, PhD and his wife Doris Kreitlow, MS were on sabbatical at Ohio State University. They began thinking about retirement. Were they ready to retire? If knowledge of retirement was a prerequisite, they were not.

They read what was already out there and found it depressing. Retirement sounded like the end of the line. They realized, however, that these writers had only looked at the problems of retirement. Few of the retirees they knew fit that pattern described in the reports. Something was wrong. In response, they began to study a group of 140 positive retirees to learn what made them productive, happy people who were still growing well up into their eighties and nineties.

They were so enthusiastic about what they learned that they began to share their findings about positive retirees in local, regional, and national workshops and in preretirement meetings and conferences. By this time they had retired themselves, and were able to speak from both research and their experiences.

Working with Groups: Creative Planning for the Second Half of Life, was developed to distribute more widely the information gathered and the learning activities they found successfully encouraged folks to think about retirement. They wrote it as an effort to prepare retirees to make choices that will lead to a great retirement.