Wally Blog One -- Haven't fully grasped the idea of retirement.

The number one question asked of me in the last six months: What will you do in retirement?

I loved being director of Washington's Division of Child Support -- well, 85% of the time or so. I worked with an amazing team of passionate individuals, focused on doing the right thing for children and families. We made tremendous gains in collecting current support. We even got recognized by the department secretary for our steady improvement and setting new in-state records.

In that role I also became involved in a couple of national organizations and made a happy ruckus with them, working on conferences and getting the word out about the great work we do in the child support world. These organizations are chock full of the most inspirational, hard working, innovative professionals one can ever hope to meet.

But between two years of teaching and seven years of counseling juvenile offenders, and twenty-seven years with child support ... well, I just didn't want to be a bureaucrat any more. I wanted to spend more time creating new things and maybe finding other ways to help out the child support folks as a side hustle, as they say.

So here I am, popping open the doors on a new consulting business because I'm still addicted to helping people. I tease my older brother, who, after "retiring" twice, is still working in his field at seventy-five. I've been reminding him that he hasn't fully grasped the whole retirement concept yet-- must be in the genes.

My intentions are to use this blog to give my thoughts on leadership development and child support issues and maybe, occasionally, just tell a story. But who knows, I may find myself slipping into robust observations of retired life and random thoughts.

Stay tuned.