CalPERS retirees are often afforded a second bite at the proverbial apple in their public service journeys. Whether it’s revisiting a sidelined passion or delving into a whole new career, our retirees tend to enjoy new leases on life. And sometimes, that even manifests on the way to the finish line.
About one-third of CalPERS’ more than 2.3 million members are retired today, and we spoke with a few who encapsulate this revitalized spirit. Here are their stories.
Larry Hicks, 69, Sacramento
After spending much of his career in the news and media industry, Larry Hicks hung up his reporter hat, yet continued to spread news about a historic program that helped millions of Californians gain life-saving health insurance through Covered California.
“When I joined Covered California in 2012, it was just coming online,” Hicks said. “I thought it was an exciting endeavor to bring health care to millions of Americans who either never had it or had lost it. Being a journalist, I saw that as a noble mission.”
As part of the newly formed communications division, Hicks spent the next 10 years traveling up and down the state helping people understand Covered California and how it could improve their lives. While he says it wasn’t quite as glamorous or exciting as his newspaper career — where he spent years writing and editing for the Sacramento Bee and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Hicks and his colleagues were engaged in honest, meaningful work.
Fast-forward to 2022, and Hicks was ready to retire for good at the age of 66 — having contributed to retirement accounts from his previous line of work, and with 10 years of service credit for his CalPERS pension. This might not be the traditional route for many working in public service, but Hicks says he’s grateful for what he’s earned, nonetheless.
“I came into state service late into my career — I didn’t have 20 years in or 30 years — I got 10 years in,” he said. “So, my pension probably isn’t as large as longer-term (CalPERS) retirees, but what I do have is very important to me.”
Between separate retirement funds from his newspaper days and the CalPERS pension, Hicks has been able to live comfortably in retirement for the past three years. Best of all, he says he hasn’t had to dip into his 401(k) just yet — and hopes it stays that way.
Now in retirement, Hicks is pursuing new interests, like serving as the unofficial videographer for his adult daughter’s high school girls basketball team, where she’s the coach. Interestingly, his adult son is the chief assistant on that same team — so these games tend to be a family affair.
On top of spending more time with family, Hicks has also done some traveling throughout the country — saying he recently went up to Eugene, Ore., to catch the U.S. Olympic Track and Field trials. He’s also gone whale-watching in Carmel, sightseeing in New Orleans, and beachside exploring in Fort Bragg, among other destinations.
Hicks reflected on what CalPERS means to him — and what it and other agencies in California mean to so many others amid a complicated time nationwide.
“If you take away some of these agencies that help a lot of people and on which a lot of people depend — for health care or retirement, you name it, we kind of go back to the stone age out here,” he said.
Ken Uyemoto, 71, Yuba City
From the farm to the laboratory, and then back to his first love of music, Ken Uyemoto’s career in and around Sutter County is rooted in a desire to provide financial stability for his family.
After obtaining an agriculture science degree at UC Davis, he went to work with his brother on the family farm in the 1980s. However, amid an economic downturn — and with a new child he and his wife had to care for — Uyemoto decided to try his hand at a city job at just 28 years old.
Uyemoto began doing maintenance and groundskeeping for the Yuba City Parks and Recreation Department, but he wanted to use more of his education and moved over to a wastewater facility, where he did laboratory analysis for several years. Eventually, he went to work at the local water treatment plant as a machinery mechanic — which he enjoyed throughout his tenure.
Uyemoto accrued 26 years of service credit by 2010, when he opted to retire early, as the city started to implement furloughs while also offering a cash incentive for employees to retire early. Age 57 by then, Uyemoto technically could retire, and after some consideration, he took the plunge despite some initial reservations.
“When I first retired, I was kind of thinking to myself, ‘Oh man, did I make the wrong decision? Maybe I should go back to work.’ I had all these doubts,” he said. “But as it turned out, it actually worked out really well.”
He was among a select few who retired early in his area, and while he hit some bumps in the road — including learning that his Social Security benefits were going to be reduced because of his CalPERS pension — Uyemoto came out on the other end just fine.
Uyemoto continued a side business he’d started years earlier doing landscaping around town, while in the same breath reviving his first true love in music.
He plays bass and acoustic guitar — the former in a rock band, and the latter as a solo artist — and through these ventures, he’s been able to keep busy while bringing in additional income.
However, these are just hobbies that he can put down and pick up as he pleases — and he says it’s because he has a CalPERS pension.
“I feel very fortunate that I have CalPERS because I would not have been able to retire when I did if I didn’t have a pension,” he said. “And people have told me, ‘Yeah, but you’re not going to get rich on PERS.’
“Well, maybe not. But at least I’ll live a comfortable life. And I have.”
Aracely Narvaez, 86, Los Angeles
As a U.S. immigrant, Aracely Narvaez’s road to and through CalPERS was, perhaps, a bit more challenging than for some native English speakers. Yet she forged a path for herself that led to a fruitful retirement for which she’s grateful.
Narvaez emigrated from Colombia in the 1970s. After taking English courses, she eventually started working for the Department of Rehabilitation in the Bay Area in 1979. From there, she worked her way up and ultimately arrived in Sacramento, where she started working as an accountant for the Department of General Services — committing more than 25 years of public service.
She retired in 2004 at the age of 65. She was hesitant to do so at first, thinking she might not receive enough from her pension to cover her financial obligations. However, once she sat down with a CalPERS representative and crunched the numbers, Narvaez said she realized she would be okay — especially upon realizing she was entitled to some Social Security benefits as well.
When Narvaez left her state job, she says she thought she would simply get back to her old hobby of custom dress-making and day-to-day housework, and that would be that. “But God had a different job for me,” she explained.
Rather than retreat to a quiet life at home, Narvaez instead delved deeper into her faith, finding her way to her local house of worship, St. Paul Catholic Church in South Sacramento, and investing herself fully to its mission.
At that point, St. Paul had no real Spanish presence in the community — no Spanish mass, and no catechism classes in Spanish either. Seeing this need, Narvaez volunteered to build this effort from the ground up, taking on a variety of duties and responsibilities that resulted in an impressive and consistent congregation that stands to this day.
“I started doing everything,” Narvaez said. “Catechism, ministry, (administering) eucharist, visiting people who were sick, establishing meetings, coordinating retreats.”
Not only did Narvaez do the heavy lifting of helping establish this internal infrastructure for Spanish speakers at her church, but she also started training others to do the same, in hopes these systems could endure and be passed on once she left. In time, that’s exactly what happened, as she relocated to Los Angeles to live with her daughter and her grandchildren around 2022.
Since leaving behind what she now considers her second career, Narvaez has had more time to herself, having spent a fair amount of time with family, including much international traveling. She’s been back to visit Colombia, and has also been to western Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and even the U.K.
As she looks back on her time with the state, she muses on the value of CalPERS, saying she wishes more foreign-born American citizens understood the benefit it could bring for long-term stability, something she was fortunately able to take advantage of herself.
“Es una tranquilidad (it’s a sense of peace) for the people — for the older people, especially,” she said. “I don’t know if it was luck, but I was pushing. When you want something, you get it.”
Are you living your best retirement life? We’d like to hear from you. Email editor@calpers.ca.gov to share your story, which may be included in a future PERSpective article featuring retirees.