Former Business Owners Share Road Map to Retirement
Nov 12, 2007

By Jamie Forsythe
Foir the Business Examiner

Owning a business isn't easy, and planning for the future is even harder. Four former business owners who have chosen the greater Tacoma area for their retirement have shared their insight into what it was like and offer advice to workers currently in the employment pool.

The Kellers
Joanne Keller's husband owned several businesses during his life. After returning home from the US Navy and finishing his pharmacy degree, Harold "Corky" Keller opened his first drug store in his hometown of Odessa, after borrowing the startup money from a family friend. The Kellers did everything in that first store, which they ran for 18 years, Joanne said, from cleaning to selling to bookkeeping.

They then purchased a gift shop in Spokane and relocated their four children to the Northtown area. With the success of that venture, the Kellers moved the gift shop, Card and Candle, into a mall and opened a Hallmark store nearby as well.

Looking back on those days, Keller, now 78, said it was essential – like it is now – for small business owners to love what they do, because it will help them be successful in the end. Her 79-year-old husband, who has Alzheimer's disease, loved pharmacy, as well as selling and buying merchandise and getting to know his customers. She also said her husband was good at planning and knew a lot about state and federal taxes.

"He was a great one at figuring out how to avoid paying what you didn't have to," she said.

Another key to a successful business, she noted, was hiring good employees who have integrity and are trustworthy.
"How to find the best employees is always a challenge," Keller said.

The Kellers ran both stores at the mall until the shopping center was purchased by new owners. Joanne said they had a company come in and liquidated everything for them, which she advises to someone looking to disband a business. Doing the work themselves would have been too much to handle. After the sale, they lived in Mount Vernon for a while before retiring at Frank Tobey Jones retirement community in Tacoma.

Did they plan for retirement?

"Not really," Keller said, noting that they saved some money, but weren't afraid to spend some, too. "You have to live each day to the fullest."
Keller advises workers of today to prepare for their retirements. She said she and her husband just got lucky that everything worked out the way it did.

Anita Fikse
Eighty-five-year-old Anita Fikse started out as an employee at a beauty shop in California. She moved up to management and eventually took over the store, which she ran for six years.

After she got married, she helped her husband, Cornelius, run a trucking business that hauled hay and other agricultural and dairy products.

To be successful in business, Fikse said, company owners and managers need to know how to control money. That was key for her success.

"You can't spend every dime you make, like people do today," she said. "You have to save for a rainy day. You got to save for the future, because you don't know how long it's (the money) going to last."

Many small business owners don't have a steady flow of income, Fikse noted, which is when having money set aside in savings pays off.

"You have to save, invest and so forth, or otherwise you won't be able to have a good retirement," she said.

When the Fikses sold their trucking business, they made enough to pay for a house and have enough money left over for investments.

"We invested," Anita Fikse said, "and it made a big difference in our future."

The Edgewood resident recently moved into Mill Ridge Village retirement community in Milton.

Bob Mizukami
His father owned and operated green houses in Fife, so that's what bob Mizukami did. He followed the Japanese tradition of the father passing on the family business to his son. When Mizukami first started working in the green houses, he said he wasn't too concerned with retirement. He had a living to make and bill to pay.

"It never occurred to me," he noted.

He advises young people to start thinking about retirement early, not when they're middle-aged like he did.

"You have to make sure you have enough assets built up so you can retire well," he said.

Lucky for Mizukami, 85, he sold the land the greenhouses were on, which provided a small nest egg for his retirement and some money for his brother, son and daughter. Mizukami retired at age 70 and has spent the last four years at Mill Ridge Village. He encourages business owners and others to take advantage of any opportunities that come along to save for retirement, or at least have money or assets set aside, especially investments of property.

"I wish I took advantage of some opportunities like that," he said.

Marion Dacca
Vegetable farming was the way to make a living in Fife decades ago, and Marion Dacca and her family did just that. The Daccas grew everything from lettuce to pumpkins to parsley.

Dacca said she didn't prepare much for her retirement, but was lucky the farm's land value skyrocketed since the family purchased it in 1942. She retired in 1989 and now resides at Mill Ridge Village.

"It all turned out good," she said, but the 85-year-old former farmer recommends workers today should plan for their future – something she wished she had done.

Dacca is hesitant of investing in the stock market though, having lived through the Great Depression.

"Investing is not the smartest idea," she said. "You ca lose your shirt in it."

She recommends just putting the money in the bank and earning interest on it.

Reprinted with permission of the Business Examiner newspaper, Volume 23/No. 23, November 12, 2007, "Retirement" section