Pickle Barrel
ONE OF THE biggest problems facing
BMO’s executive vice-president
Sherry Cooper right now is how she is
going to find enough space in her
office for the steady stream of flower
arrangements arriving at her door.
“It’s a bit crazy right now,” she says with a laugh. “I haven’t even had a chance to unwrap anything yet.”
Tonight marks the launch of Cooper’s third book, The New Retirement: How It Will Change Our Future, and though she has been up since six a.m., doing press interviews, the petite economist — cited as one of the most influential women in Canada — appears to be taking the hectic pace in stride. She notes that a 12- hour workday is not uncommon in her world, where she spends her time writing, giving interviews and speaking on the economy and its impact on financial markets.
“It’s a very intense and demanding position, but I really do love what I do,” she says. “I’m not a workaholic by any stretch. There’s a lot of flexibility in my work, and I can basically decide on the areas I think are the most important to concentrate on for the benefit of Bank of Montreal’s clients and customers. It’s exciting because I have such a broad range of subjects and, really, a never-ending stream of areas to concentrate on and things to think about.”
Though Cooper grew up in a typical 1950s household with a stay-at-home mom and working father, she says she knew early on that she too wanted to pursue a career outside of the household.
“All I knew was I loved to read and I had a fantasy about travelling the world,” she says. “And I had also decided that my dad had more fun than my mom; I thought that he had the better end of the deal, so I did aspire to do less of what she did and more of what he did.”
However, it wasn’t until she added an economics class to fill in a gap in her sophomore schedule as a math major at Goucher College, in Baltimore, that she discovered her passion for social science.
“It was just a random thing, and it was serendipitous because I just loved it from the start,” she says. “It used my analytical capabilities the way the math did, but it’s more fuzzy. It’s got a lot of human behavioural aspects. It gave me that broader scope of being both academic and real-world.”
After completing her MA and PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, Cooper quickly rose through the ranks of her field, first as an economist with the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal National Mortgage Association, before moving to Canada in 1983 to accept her position with BMO Capital Markets.
“I have no regrets,” she says of her move north of the border. “I’ve pretty much lived here longer than any other place I’ve ever lived. I like Toronto, with all of its cultural activities and great restaurants, and it’s a great place to raise children. My son was able to move about the city with his friends when he was 11 or 12 years old. And he got a great education here at Upper Canada College.”
Cooper says that, though it was challenging being one of the few women in her field, she worked hard to maintain a balance between career and family life when her son was young.
“It was very difficult in the beginning because it was so unaccepted and so strange,” she says. “I think any working mom is trying to be superwoman. I don’t know how I did it, and I only had one child, and so I sure don’t know how women with several children or women who can’t afford in-home care do it. But the great thing about now is that women have choice, whereas I felt, if I’d taken a few years off, I would have derailed my career. Today it is common for even the most senior women to take an extended maternity leave, so it has gotten better.”
And now, as the first wave of Canadian baby boomers approach retirement age, Cooper is focused on spreading the message she puts forth in her newest book. More than a typical retirement or personal finance book, Cooper says The New Retirement: How It Will Change Our Future is more of a guidebook on how one can transition and find success in later life.
“When I started writing the book, I realized that you can’t really talk about financial plans until you think about the lifestyle you want to lead when you retire — where you would like to live, what you would like to do,” she says. “That got me involved beyond the lifestyle issues, to all the literature regarding healthy, happy, successful aging.
Given longevity these days, boomers could easily spend 30 to 35 years in retirement, if they retire at age 60, and given that that’s such a long stretch of time, I think it’s really important to make the most of that time.”
Cooper says that through her research she found that many boomers want to work well beyond retirement age, and she encourages them to seek out ways to continue on in the workforce for as long as they want to remain.
“What’s happening here is that this is the healthiest, wealthiest generation ever, and boomers have a great deal of energy,” she says. “Now they want to work more flexibly and take more time off or work from remote locations, and with technology today, you can do that. Given that most of our jobs in today’s world are not physically demanding, I think there will be a huge opportunity for boomers to carry on in whatever way they want.”
She says for boomers who don’t like their job or feel burnt-out this is a time to redefine their role in the workplace, not to leave it.
“Some feel that now they have the opportunity to teach or do social work or to do things that maybe they couldn’t afford to do before, while others want to start their own business or be consultants or help the underprivileged through volunteer work,” she says. “We are going to see a huge amount of volunteerism, more so than ever before. People have a strong sense of legacy, and once you’ve achieved a certain amount of success in your career, you very quickly realize that a successful life is so much more than just your job.”
She says that though there will be a slowdown in the growth of the labor force, when boomers eventually pull away from the workforce, it will not have a damaging effect on the economy. She points to the fact that boomers will continue to pay taxes into the system and also will earn money a lot later in life as they continue to invest in the stock market. Additionally, she says boomers will stay homeowners longer than originally forecast because they are happy with their houses and the cost of downsizing can end up more expensive than maintaining their current address.
However, she adds that as the boomers age it will put an additional strain on the health care system, which will require a re-examination of how our medical system is operated.
“By far the bulk of health care expenses are within the last three to five years of your life,” she says. “Thank goodness, with the technological advancements in medicine, people will live healthier, longer lives.
She says that she doesn’t like the term “retirement” because of its association with decline, deterioration and isolation and believes that the later years of one’s life can actually represent a time of regeneration, growth and maturity.
“I think that the last 30 years of life could be the best 30,” she says.
“You have an opportunity — in fact
possibly the only opportunity in life —
to truly self-actualize, to do what you
want to do and have the freedom and
time to do that. I certainly have no
plans to retire just because I reach a
certain age. Given that I love what I do
and it isn’t physically demanding, I
plan to carry on until I am no longer
needed or when it stops being fun. But
I’m not anywhere near that point yet.” 
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