Deborah Trefts
Staff Writer
Gray, white and color-treated hair — and the lack thereof — have been all the rage in Chautauqua Institution for quite some time now. Amphitheater lecturers and performers often joke about it. But hair transformation in middle age is a not-so-subtle signal to get a move on figuring out what will matter most during one’s latter years and how one should spend whatever time one has left.
The topic is so important to Jane Kerschner and Gary Sirak that they have been joining forces periodically to guide Chautauquans along this particular path of introspection and decision-making.
At 9:15 a.m. Tuesday in the CWC House, Kerschner and Sirak will converse with Chautauquans about “How to Retire and Not Die” as part of the Chautauqua Women’s Club’s Chautauqua Speaks program.
Because a number of Chautauquans are enrolled in Kerschner’s Special Studies course each weekday morning during Week Six — titled “At the Intersection of Retirement, Purpose and Aging” — Chautauquans will be attending this conversation as part of the audience, and she will be initiating it.
Kerschner is an educator, pioneering entrepreneur and professionally certified well-being coach who leads wise aging, retirement and coaching groups. Sirak is a financial adviser, book author and speaker.
“I feel it’s essential to create a safe space to support people to reflect on who they are and who they want to become,” Kerschner said. “I use a coach approach in my classes, which means I offer a little material and then we process it together, and people learn as much from their fellow classmates as from me. Every session is like a workshop. I don’t lecture.”
Sirak’s approach is more question-oriented and instructional. “I keep having these clients who are going to retire, … and I say, ‘Tell me about your first day, first week, first month.’ They look at me like a deer in the headlights. I tell them — among other things — if you don’t have a purpose, passion and plan, you’ll have a world of hurt about to set in. I’ve seen too much depression because their work was everything to them. I ask them, ‘How will you build your plan?’ … You have to put effort into it.”
Kerschner and Sirak’s differing methods and styles of providing guidance will give each Chautauquan attending a unique opportunity to assess whether or not one or both approaches seems to be a good fit for their personal situation.
Sirak hails from Canton, Ohio. In the 1950s, he “began his career as a homemade potholder salesman — at the age of 5.” Growing up, he did other creative odd jobs to earn spending money.
At Miami University in Ohio, he “kind of fell into English, (which he) really liked,” and majored in it. When he graduated, he “knew he wanted to be in sales of some sort.”
For five years, Sirak sold waxes and polishes for an auto parts store owned by a friend of his father. Although he was successful, he said, “There was no joy in it, and that didn’t sit well.”
“I was on a golf course in West Palm Beach, (Florida), with a friend of my father, and he suggested I join my dad,” he said. “I’d never thought of it.”
His father had started Sirak Financial Services in 1957, initially selling insurance. Sirak said that growing up, he had never gone into the office. Yet, he did as suggested, and 25 years later, he took over the leadership of this company.
Having “worked with hundreds of clients, advising and preparing them for the financial side of retirement (and) listening to their stories and experiences, (Sirak) realized retirement is not just about the financial side of things.”
To honor the best advice his father gave him — “Be the one in the room who wants to help people” — Sirak began writing books. His first two are titled If Your Money Talked…What Secrets Would It Tell? (2011), and The American Dream Revisited: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results (2016).
Sirak established The American Dream Revisited Scholarship in 2016 after writing his second book, with the goal of helping “as many people as I can to explore the opportunities and possibilities of their lives and give them skills and tools to achieve them.”
With his son Max Sirak, he wrote his third book, How to Retire and Not Die: The 3 Ps That Will Keep You Young (2021).
According to Sirak, “How To Retire and Not Die offers real-life plans, tips and answers for anyone who is planning their retirement, close to retirement, already retired or helping a family member or friend through this important stage of life.”
Kerschner lived in Pittsburgh until she was 16, when her father moved her family to Erie, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Lynn Levinson, had gone to camp on Chautauqua Lake when she was young, and Kerschner said she agreed to leave Pittsburgh only on the condition that she’d be able to come to Chautauqua Institution each season.
Later, Levinson would serve as a member of Chautauqua’s board of trustees, and her daughter Jane would “become very involved with the Chautauqua Property Owners Association for six years,” retiring after the 2024 season.
“When I was in 11th grade and going to my synagogue in Erie, they needed a teacher’s aide for the 5 year olds,” Kerschner said. “The teacher retired the next year, and they gave me the position. Then I decided I’d become a teacher. I studied education at Northwestern University (in Evanston, Illinois) in the crazy ’70s. That was after Kent State. I made up my curriculum.”
After college, she said she taught in several different schools in the Washington D.C. area, had three daughters, returned to teaching and undertook some teacher training.
In 1983, Kerschner earned a Master of Arts in human growth and development at The George Washington University in Washington D.C. She earned a second Master of Arts in 2001, this time in human performance systems improvement at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.
“That led from one gig to another in education,” Kerschner said. “I was drawn to the social-emotional part of learning. It’s important in giving students and adults a sense of safety in order to learn. … I worked on bullying with the Ophelia Project.”
Because her mother wasn’t well, she said she commuted from greater D.C. to Erie. Named after the best-seller Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (1994), the Ophelia Project had been established in Erie in 1997.
For nine years, from January 2000 through December 2008, Kerschner served as its director of school programs and development. In this capacity, she “collaborated with educational leaders for schools and school districts around the country to create safer learning environments for children.”
And she “designed and supported the implementation of a systemic school-wide process to address bullying and relational aggression, … and trained educators, school staff, parents and students in building awareness and strategies to confront bullying and create a safer social climate for learning.” Kerschner also “developed assessments, programming and curriculum.”
“My parents both got sick in their early 60s,” she said. “… (They) were healthy before then. … They died 10 months apart at 72. When they died, I was 50. … (After a while), I decided to become an ontological coach — a well-being coach — instead of a life coach.”
While she was with the Ophelia Project, Kerschner began working in September 2004 as a retirement coach and wise aging facilitator in the Washington D.C. Metro Area and soon embarked on a period of intensive and varied training leading to a number of professional coaching certifications.
“I’m a perpetual learner,” she said. “I’m a seeker. Seeking is my answer.”
At Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania, in 2005, she earned her certification in executive coaching and leadership and then began coach training with Newfield Network. Studying somatics with Stuart Heller and as part of Newfield’s body and movement program, she began focusing on the “whole person.”
Kerschner finished this advanced training in 2009, earning NCOC certification in personal development coaching through Newfield’s coach education program, which in turn enabled her to mentor new coaches.
After completing the requisite number of coaching hours necessary to be awarded the professional certified coach — PCC — credential by the International Coaching Federation, she joined the ICF Metro D.C.’s board as director of professional development, focusing on “coach education and leadership” in 2013.
“I’ve worked for my coaching school for the past 18 years as a consultant,” she said. “Newfield Network is in Boulder, Colorado. It’s now virtual. I’ve done that with a parenting coaching course from Asia and with somatic coaching.”
Also during 2009, Kerschner studied for and earned her certification as a True Purpose Coach. Through 2011, she served as a program coach for the True Purpose Institute. She has continued working “with individuals and small groups to coach them in finding and manifesting their purpose.”
Meanwhile, from 2007 to 2011, she served in various positions as a member of the board of the City at Peace, in Washington D.C., including serving as president. Through a year’s “study of cross cultural understanding,” the “development of non-violent conflict resolution skills” and “the musical performance of their life stories,” this program “inspired and equipped” youths ages 13–19 “to ignite transformation in the community and in their own lives.”
Following her tenure with the Ophelia Project, Kerschner partnered for eight years with La Trenza Leadership in the Washington metro area. As program developer, trainer and consultant, she used her “coaching and education backgrounds to develop curriculum and training for Latina educators, girls and their parents that support empowerment in their school community.”
In October 2008, Kerschner established the first of three coaching-related small businesses. Initially, she and three partners established JICT Images, which develops and produces “a valuable tool for coaches, trainers, facilitators and educators to initiate meaningful conversations with their clients.”
She launched Kaleidoscope Coaching and Consulting in Chevy Chase, Maryland, in 2009 to guide “individuals and teams in identifying and manifesting their purpose in the service of others, … helping (new coaches) gain ICF certification and expand their effectiveness with clients, … and (coaching) educational leaders.”
“On the cusp of 60, I declared that I would become a wise elder,” Kerschner said. “I’d just joined a new synagogue in D.C. As a new member, I shared my skills in teaching and facilitating. They asked me to take … training with the Institute of Jewish Spirituality.”
She said that the basis of this training was Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, & Spirit (2015) by Linda Thal and Rachel Cowan.
“I got integrated into the temple and started leading wise aging groups,” Kerschner said. “I loved creating a space for people to begin creating a space for topics that are scary and uncomfortable. If they could speak about them — share them — in a safe, supportive space, we could get into some real conversations about aging.”
Reading a chapter a session for nine sessions, the participants in each group became a small community that supported each other for eight or nine years.
“I realized, at 64, that I was a lot younger than most of the participants — 60 versus 80 or 90,” Kerschner said. “(I thought —) ‘I’d like to be working with my peers — what am I doing?’ They were retiring. I felt like I was a wise ager on training wheels.”
So she enrolled in Retirement Options Advanced Coaching Program to learn about wise aging coaching.
“This was before everyone jumped on the bandwagon — celebrities like Maria Shriver,” Kerschner said. “When I did it, I was very new. I was a pioneer.”
Through this program, she met Fran Rudolph. Together they started KR Coaches in the D.C. metro area “to weave together their diverse backgrounds and expertise to address opportunities and challenges of retiring and aging well … (and to develop) a group of services for individuals, couples, financial planners and more.”
Ever since, Kerschner has been running wise aging, retirement and coaching groups.
