Photo / courtesy of D&S Executive Career Management
Debra Boggs
Updated: January 27, 2025
‘ME-tirement’ takes off: These Maine women business leaders are taking a career break
Photo / Jim Neuger
Joan Fortin, newly retired from the CEO role at Bernstein Shur, and her husband Chet Randall prepare for an extended trip to New Zealand.
Joan Fortin is thousands of miles — and multiple time zones — removed from her home in Portland and the law firm she was associated with for 30 years and led for the last five.
Retired from Bernstein Shur but not yet sure of her next professional move, the 58-year-old is taking an extended break with her husband, Chet Randall, 59, the former deputy director at Pine Tree Legal Assistance. On Jan. 5, a week after they left their jobs, they flew to New Zealand.
“Sometimes I say we’re taking a career hiatus, other times I say retired or we’re in transition,” Fortin says days before departure. Backpacking trips, car camping and “living in a van for a month” are all on the itinerary, but beyond that is wide open.
“We’ve promised ourselves not to make any commitments for the immediately foreseeable future,” says Fortin, who has updated her LinkedIn profile to “enthusiastic traveler.”
The couple spent their first week exploring Christchurch and preparing for two months of hiking and backpacking, including a four-day trek along the 37-mile Abel Tasman Coast Track. While menu planning, they discovered that back-country food had come a long way since they had lived in Alaska in the late 1990s.
“It’s really important for us to take some time, be together outside to rest and recover and see what bubbles up,” Fortin says. “I just want to give my heart a chance to speak to me.”
Career ‘pause’
“Me” is the leitmotif for several Maine women business and nonprofit leaders in their 40s and 50s who are pressing pause on their careers to focus on themselves.
The five we spoke with are all leaving high-profile jobs they have found to be fulfilling yet all-consuming. Yet “retirement” doesn’t quite fit the bill for these trailblazers.
Besides Fortin, the first woman to lead Bernstein Shur, a law firm founded in 1915, they include a former school administrator toying with a move into remote work; a nonprofit leader wrapping up a personal 10-year plan; a commercial broker who’s winding down after 22 years with an agency she’s led since October 2022; and the former head of a nonprofit foundation who declined to be quoted.
No matter how long their sabbaticals last, they all underscore that they’re far from done with their professional lives — they’re just taking time to reset and recharge. Joined by a growing number of fellow Gen Xers, they may be at the forefront of a new social movement perhaps best described as a “ME-tirement” to reflect the focus on self and “ME” for Maine.
Age is just a number
While working women traditionally have taken time off at the start of their professional lives to start families, late-career breaks are becoming more common for the generation of women “sandwiched” between dependent children and elderly parents. With people living longer, having children later and also retiring later, attitudes about aging are also evolving, with career shifts no longer out of reach for older adults.
Labor statistics don’t yet tell the full story of the emerging late-career break trend. While U.S. Department of Labor data show declining job market participation rates among both men and women in their late 40s, the agency does not provide data on those who have taken themselves out of the labor force temporarily.
While some who take a break eventually earn a living again, there’s no specific data on how many or what proportion do so, according to Maine Department of Labor economist Glenn Mills.
Separately, 2023 data from the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., show a higher proportion of women ages 50 and older who are out of the labor force and retired. However, since respondents could only cite “unable to work” or “retired” as reasons for not working, there’s no clear picture about those who are temporarily out of the labor force.
Statistics also don’t fully reflect how the pandemic has sparked a growing desire — particularly among women — to find meaningful work, whether that be paid or voluntary, instead of just drawing a paycheck. There’s also a renewed focus on prioritizing family, friends and personal interests that may have gone ignored during someone’s career.
“Anecdotally, there’s been a major shift to go into mission-based work,” says Debra Boggs, a Scarborough-based career coach who founded and leads D&S Executive Career Management. “The majority of candidates looking for senior leadership roles tell me that they want to work with a company with a product or service they believe in and can stand behind.”
Boggs, whose client base is around 60% women, also notes that women in executive roles aren’t “retiring” anymore at that level, but are stepping back and seeking more focus on work-life balance.
“These women don’t want to continue to climb the corporate ladder but want to stay engaged in some way and continue to add value through their knowledge and expertise,” she says, adding: “This is the generation that’s really making career decisions based on what they want.”
Lael Jepson, a Portland-based leadership coach and business consultant to women around the country, observed a spike last year among clients who resigned from their jobs.
“I wouldn’t say that women are leaving to pause their careers,” says the former Hannaford executive, who founded SheChanges in 2006. “They’re leaving to own them.”
‘Terrifying to step away’
In Cumberland, Jesssica Estes plans to spend the next year working on home projects after wrapping up her term as president of the Boulos Co., a Portland-based commercial real estate firm, at the end of this month. The 48-year-old joined the agency 22 years ago and took the helm a little more than two years ago.
“I kind of grew up at Boulos and ended up as president,” she says. “At some point you just look around and ask, ‘What do I really want to have accomplished when I look back at my professional career when I have 20 years left?’”
She says that while she doesn’t know what’s next, she’d like to take time to figure out what she’s drawn to most when she no longer has a job that became more demanding during the pandemic.
“Women my age, we had to pull extra at work if we were leaders at our company and had to do more than usual,” she says. “Somehow, we all got through this crazy time, but at some point, you hit burnout where you say you need a break.”
Photo / Jim Neuger
Jessica Estes is stepping back from her leadership role at the Boulos Co. to focus on her own projects.
Encouraged by her fiancé to take at least a year off, Estes plans to channel her creative energy into endeavors including a backyard frog pond and bird garden.
“There’s something about connecting with nature that has been a theme in my life more and more over the past couple of years,” she says. “Trying to create an outdoor area seems like the right thing to do.”
Estes has also been doing a lot of reading, including Ann Patchett’s best-selling book of essays “These Precious Days,” with some trepidation about her own next chapter.
“It’s terrifying to step away from everything I’ve been working for all these years,” she admits. “I made it to the pinnacle and then I’m like, ‘OK, I guess let’s see what else is out there.’”
Riding into the unknown
In western Franklin County, Kate Webber Punderson spent 23 years in three different roles at Carrabasset Valley Academy, including 13 as head of school at her alma mater. It’s a combination college-prep school and ski and snowboard academy for grades 7-12.
Two years before stepping down in June 2024, Punderson told the board about her plans, to allow plenty of time to find a successor for a role she has relished but felt ready to leave.
“I believe strongly that change in leadership is healthy for organizations,” she explains. “I care so deeply about the school that I was willing to take a bit of a risk in my own career for the health of the school.” Re-focusing on her own health was equally important.
“With my next job,” she says, “it’s very important I make sure there’s time for my own mental and physical health so I can continue to take care of others and do the things I love for many years to come. If I stayed in that job, I wasn’t going to be able to do that.”
Photo / provided
Kate Webber Punderson, the former head of school for Carrabasset Valley Academy, is an avid mountain biker.
In her first summer off, Punderson and her husband spent two months camping and mountain biking in the U.S. and Canadian Rockies from Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana up to central British Columbia. Lamenting the fact that “there’s no such thing as a true vacation anymore,” Punderson says the trip was the first time in her life without emails hanging over her head.
Since getting back in September, she spent two months with a career coach reflecting on her leadership and work experience and thinking about what she wants in her next life — both from a career and personal standpoint. Together they created a list of “satisfiers.”
Punderson, 53, is now starting to look for her next job and likes the idea and flexibility of remote work.
“The easy thing to do is to just stay where you’re comfortable, but I think life is a big adventure and you’ve got to have new experiences and meet new people,” she says.
Whatever she does next professionally she hopes to do for a long time. “I see myself retiring in 20 years, but not now,” she says.
The long and winding road
For Liz Cotter Schlax, 53, leaving her job as president and CEO of United Way comes exactly a decade after she started at the organization then known as United Way of Greater Portland.
Back when she interviewed for the job, she said she intended to stay for about 10 years.
“That was always the plan,” says Cotter Schlax, who anticipates finishing in February as the board does final interviews for her successor. “I always felt that 10 years was the right amount of time to create some stability in an organization and have an impact, but not too long to get tired.”
Joan Fortin feels the same way about her former employer, saying that “anyone who’s been around me knows I bleed Bernstein Shur.” While saying good-bye was emotional, she’s having the time of her life in New Zealand.
“One thing that continually catches my eye is the farming pastures,” says Fortin, who grew up on a dairy farm in the Kennebec County town of Benton, where she helped build and maintain fences.
In her current surroundings, she’s amazed that no matter how steep the terrain, there are sturdy fences in every direction for livestock grazing on hillsides.
Her take on the rest of the scenery: “It is simply breathtaking and provides an unending feast for my eyes and my heart.”
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