Multigenerational Diversity: Hiring and Retaining Older Workers Helps Businesses Thrive

Nick Celenza, 80, rises at 6 a.m. every day, and on five of those days, he heads to work at Parker LORD, a technology and manufacturing company in Cary, N.C. The electrical engineer, who spent more than 30 years working for IBM, started his most recent job roughly three years ago.

“We work on government programs, government helicopters – actually troop carriers – and I design and test electronic circuits for that,” he says. “The reason I’m working is not because I need the money necessarily, but because it keeps me active.”