Ever hear of a "link job?"

Nan Steketee – an avid bicyclist,  fundraiser for MS, knitter, and garden enthusiast, among many other things – feels 10 years younger than her age. No way, she says, is she ready for  “retirement.”

But she is ready for a “link job,” as she calls it.

 “I’m looking for something between being being totally absorbed and exhausted” on the one hand  and “doing hobbies” on the other, Nan explains.

She’s come up with an interesting niche: to be an interim executive director of a non- profit, stepping in temporarily to fill a vacancy created by illness, incompetence or some other leadership void. There are a limited number of people who do this kind of thing, she explains over coffee at Volo in Manyunk.

In such a job, she says, she could use the many leadership skills she's developed over her career in the non-profit world. Nan  launched and for 20 years ran the Center for Responsible Funding in Philadelphia. She and her husband moved to California for six years where Nan was Bay Area Development Manager for Earth Share of California After her return and until recently, she was Development Director for the Women's Law Project. 

She wants to plunge in for the short term, but not for the five-year commitment she feels a permanent leadership role deserves. “I can’t see out that far,” she says.

In the wings, also calling her, are her husband, children, “four wonderful grandchildren,”  riding her bike long miles,  a commitment to city kids (she and her husband, Scott, are a support system for one young man in college).

“At the end of such a temporary job, I might take another one. I might at that point  be ready to retire.  I’m not sure. We’ll see.”

I love the idea of a link job. It could be many links, linking one adventure to the next. Who knows?

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