Senior Bosses: Running a business after retirement age.

• Author: Erickson, Nancy

Age is just a number to the growing ranks of business owners over the age of 65. According to the March 2023 issue of Alaska Economic Trends, published by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the state's senior population grew from 54,900 in 2010 to 94,000 in 2020, and the growth rate continues to climb. The over-65 age group grew 12 percent in the last two years alone, reaching 105,600 in 2022.

Many of those seniors are not quite ready to kick back, put up their feet, and enjoy those "golden" years.

In an AARP website article, "Who's Working More? People Age 65 and Older," the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects 13 million people in that age group nationwide will still be working by 2024.

"These older workers will constitute the fastest-growing segment of the workforce from 2014 to 2024," the article states. "While the total number of workers is expected to increase by 5 percent over those ten years, the number of workers ages 65 to 74 will swell by 55 percent. For people 75 and older, the total will grow a whopping 86 percent," according to BLS projections.

What's the impetus behind these figures?

Three Alaskans still in business after age 65 share a simple reason to stay in the workforce: they love what they're doing.

Man Behind the Voice

Jack Frost turns 85 in July, but the familiar advertising voice that Anchorage radio listeners know and love is ageless.

Born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Seattle area, Frost had sights on a career in radio and television at an early age. He enrolled at the University of Washington and graduated in exactly four years with a degree in radiotelevision.

Graduation day was hectic, Frost recalls.

"I was commissioned in the Army (from ROTC) at 8 a.m. that morning, attended graduation at 1 p.m. that afternoon, and was married to the female vice president of the student body at 7 p.m.," Frost says. The couple were married for ten years and had three sons.

Following his stint in the military, Frost returned to Seattle and began his radio career as a disc jockey at KIXI, KVI, and KING. Management at KING thought Frost would do better in sales and sent him to Spokane to learn the trade at KREM.

From there Frost partnered with an ad agency in Spokane, and his career path was forged.

Fast forward to 1974, when Frost arrived in Anchorage to help a former advertising client from Seattle who was trying to buy Anchorage Chrysler.

"I worked for them for about a year, when Ron Moore at KBYR hired me to be the radio operations director," says Frost. "From there my life took me back to the agency business, where I remain to this day," as...