Savage did not figure on her retirement years being so un-retiring. After a long career as a business executive who specialized in small business development, she was looking forward to a long rest. She was wrong. Savage said, "After I had been retired a month, I asked myself, ‘Oh my, why did I do that?' " Savage didn't pussyfoot around. She joined the Peace Corps and a year later she found herself working in a bank in Mongolia. Once again, she asked herself, "Oh my, why did I do that?" However, Savage was getting closer and closer to retirement satisfaction. The Peace Corps had a few drawbacks, but Savage found that she loved helping people in other nations discover better business practices. "It was really very rewarding in Mongolia," Savage said. "When I started there was one bank with nine employees. When I left in 2003 there were six branches and 45 employees."
Mongolia RPCV Ann Savage plants seeds for business success worldwide
Ann Savage plants seeds for business success worldwide
By Cliff Newell
The Lake Oswego Review, May 6, 2010
Ann Savage combines travel and doing good through her affliation with CNFA.
CLIFF NEWELL / lake oswego review
Ann Savage has Georgia on her mind.
Also Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Angola.
A life-long lover of travel, the long-time Lake Oswego resident really gets around the world. And as a volunteer for CNFA, Savage does a tremendous amount of good.
"The people are absolutely magnificent," Savage said. "I love the travel. I get to go into offices and meet people and really get to know them. It's a real pleasure for me."
Savage did not figure on her retirement years being so un-retiring. After a long career as a business executive who specialized in small business development, she was looking forward to a long rest. She was wrong.
Savage said, "After I had been retired a month, I asked myself, ‘Oh my, why did I do that?' "
Savage didn't pussyfoot around. She joined the Peace Corps and a year later she found herself working in a bank in Mongolia. Once again, she asked herself, "Oh my, why did I do that?"
However, Savage was getting closer and closer to retirement satisfaction. The Peace Corps had a few drawbacks, but Savage found that she loved helping people in other nations discover better business practices.
"It was really very rewarding in Mongolia," Savage said. "When I started there was one bank with nine employees. When I left in 2003 there were six branches and 45 employees."
Savage was just getting started. Next on her agenda were trips to Azerbaijan (a nation on the Caspian Sea), Africa and Georgia, best known as the home country of Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin. She showed a special capacity to help nations of the former Soviet Union find their way in the business world.
Georgia was found by Savage to be a country of great beauty, which she said is very similar to Oregon, and enormous potential, which she tried to unlock.
"It borders on not being a Third World country," Savage said. "I was fortunate to work in the capitol, Tbilisi. I also saw the countryside and saw how the war of a couple years ago had affected it. Their farming practices are not good."
Savage went about showing the Georgians better ways of planting, plowing, harvesting and getting their food to market.
"I probably made more recommendations than I should have," Savage said, but she was pleased by the results.
"People are looking beyond the box they've found themselves in," she said. "The Soviet Union mindset is, ‘This is the way it's always been.' Now, someone like me can come in with new ideas."
Another big thing in Georgia's favor: "It has the best wine I've ever tasted. It has tremendous potential."
Angola was even a stronger example of where Savage helped the people break out of the box. The country was just coming out of an incredibly long 27-year civil war in which education had broken down almost completely.
Savage had been warned, "They're not going to talk to you," but she said, "They immediately started talking and asking me questions."
Soon, Savage had the mostly illiterate Angolan women doing some big things, like how to plan. She showed them how to make a calendar.
"I opened their eyes to planning, which they had never done," Savage said.
But perhaps her biggest achievement was the warehouse.
"The men didn't show up one day to make the bricks to make the cinderblocks," Savage said. "I told them don't wait for anybody who will be responsible for the bricks."
She then made assignments for which women would be responsible for the bricks, doors, windows, and the warehouse was done. On time, too.
"On the first of December they sent me a picture of the grand opening of their warehouse," Savage said.
With such inspiration, Savage plans to keep going. She has made a happy switch from the Peace Corps to CNFA, an organization dedicated to fostering economic growth in foreign nations.
"CNFA is more organized in what they ask you to do," Savage said. "You truly know what you can and can't do, then you try to meet the objectives."
CNFA was founded in 1985 as the Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs; in 2007 it legally changed its name to CNFA.
Savage was quite weary after her sojourn in Georgia, but she is ready to go back there and to Angola to see the fruits of her labors.
Retirement for Ann Savage doesn't seem to be in the future.
"I think I found my niche too late!" she said with a laugh.
