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The vast majority of people who are great aren't great because they want to be. they don't have a choice, they need to be. He's got some time, he can figure it out. Maybe partner with those friends. Sharing the load is incredibly motivating.

At least get him to take a long look at those contracts. Heck, he might be released from them on severance.

Talk to him about it. No matter what happens, it's going to be a rough time for him. If he feels safer going and looking for work, good for him, there's no judgement. But you make it sound like he really needs to take care of his family. Just keep this option in mind. Time is on your side, for now.

Thanks, I'll be sure to echo this to him.

Those contacts are worth a ridiculous amount of money. Niche consulting for the enterprise can yield literally millions of dollars/a year in support for a client like UPS. An Alpha setup.. I'm guessing OpenVMS? Mission critical to their business. Whatever support contract they're paying HP, he can join any big-name tech consulting firm, play golf with the CIO or purchasing authority in charge of maintenance/support and just _happen to mention_ he moved firms.

He doesn't have to go on-site to UPS to bring that business over to another firm, and when you build up _30 years_ of trust, that Rolodex and trust is worth 50x the best technical engineers ability (in terms of generating billables). He's in a great position. Senior Partners at McKinsey aren't paid millions because of their ability to put together a nice deck. They're paid that way because they have 20 years of billables and reliable after-work. If he's laid off and not picked up in 2 weeks, tell him to e-mail me.

Word. Your dad needs to gather up all his contacts, put them in a spreadsheet and figure out who he's got. Then, figure out which of his customers will get screwed in this. Then, collect his team. Then, figure out the noncompete. It's very doable, but very scary.

And whatever tasks he doesn't like, accounting, bookkeeping, etcetera. He can hire someone full time or even just part time to handle for him. That way he can focus on the things he does well, selling and doing the work.

My dad was working as a consultant (environmental consultant, basically handling the creation of reports needed for a company's legal compliance with emissions standards, etc.) for an industrial trade org. They had a rule not to compete with member companies, so when a consultancy joined the org, they shut down his division, even though the new member only offered services that were tangentially related. He ended up working for himself (one man shop) for the last 13 years of his career before retiring, doing exactly the same thing he'd always done. He's not a sales person by any means, and striking out on his own definitely seemed outside his comfort zone at first. But he was able to base his business on the relationships with customers that he'd already established, and since he's got such a specialized skill set and works so diligently, his customers kept coming back and recommended him to others. So I just wanted to give an example that this sort of thing is possible (assuming there's no non-compete clause to undermine the whole thing - in my dad's case he did it with the blessing of his former employer - sometimes they'd even send him leads when they had to turn away a customer)

As long as he can get the legal stuff square (non-competes, etc) it's not that risky. You're not trying to start a unicorn tech company, just convert a few contacts into customers to replace your old income and hopefully make more than you did before. My dad did this last year, at 60, and it's been going pretty good. Having a big network is a huge plus.

>He's one of 4 remaining from the "blue days" (time with Digital); I think they'd be able to pull it off if they did go this route. They're all pretty awesome.

From personal experience, I want to add some long-term expectations about commanding premium consulting rates -- especially as it relates to vendor-proprietary knowledge.

I used to work for an enterprise software firm and was on their "crisis firefighting team". I'd travel to customer sites at less than 24 hours notice and fix their worst problems. These were the problems that were escalated to the CEO.

When I left the company and struck out on my own as a freelance "subject matter expert", I was able to command $300k a year for a few years. My background and rate was easy to sell: I was trained directly by the people who wrote the software.

The thing is that I always knew I was living on borrowed time because that high income was based on my previous association of being in the "inner circle" of how the software works. I had to diversify my skills away from that software because with each year that passed by, I became more of an "outsider" just like everyone else.

To relate to your dad's situation ... yes he's very good at what he does, but some of that value may also be his inside feed of information from HP. After he's separated from HP, as each new generation of server & printer hardware is released, his "aura" of HP knowledge can become outdated and less relevant value for customers. In other words, he needs to charge whatever premium rate he can, save as much as he can, all with an eye towards diversifying his income. Diversity could mean new tech skills such as learning AWS architecture or buying real estate to get income from rental properties.

For people who work with legacy technologies, it can actually be the reverse situation. Yeah, your knowledge of The Latest Hipster Web Framework becomes less valuable year on year, but the situation is a little different for senior personnel running Fortune 50-level ops on legacy technologies. They aren't exactly churning OpenVMS systems architects out of coding boot camps. It's a lot the same situation as COBOL programmers are in - they're not something you need a million of, the work may not be 100% stable, but when you do need them they're fixing mission-critical systems that have millions/billions of dollars of business riding on them and the rates are astronomical.

Uh, this sort of hardware doesn't get upgraded in a year or two. Or ever. One word: COBOL.

If this is anything like the last set of layoffs and sell offs the the early 2000s, there will be a lot of smaller companies starting up that will handle the business that HP will start to lose.

I worked at a large company that used HP hardware with large, multi-million dollar contracts and a lot of our business went out to these smaller companies. The level of service that your father can provide is important to large enterprises. If your father doesn't want to start his own company, someone else will. He should start talking to his colleagues and his boss - maybe someone is already thinking of starting something.

These sorts of layoffs can create opportunity for people like your dad. HP can't just lay off that many people without hurting parts of their service line.

he can do it with your help and guidance. the midwest and south are littered with many small tech consulting outfits like this, we work with several. they all bill slightly under coastal market (we're based in california) but high for the midwest ($~150-200/hr). we use them for things like tech-focused CPA work and commercial software support i.e. oracle, sql server etc.

i personally bootstrapped my startup with 0 outside funding by doing commercial i.e. "enterprise" software consulting on a platform i had experience in from two jobs ago, with my partner, for 2 years. we each booked about $250k of revenue a year for 2-3 years before the work dried up after several buyouts etc. by then our 'real' business was self sustaining.

it's time-capped, and you'll have to hustle for the work, but you can bill an outrageous sum of money that will pad their retirement and help secure their future in an otherwise shit situation.

When CFEngine got bust (well, the company was put on life-support) all the guys who know the technology (even if it was just a 1-2 years of experience) resigned and turned into contractors with a semi-permanent contracts and 2-3x income boost.

It's not hard.

>> I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers

You should do a few things.

1 - Contact an employment attorney and see if they can determine if he signed a non-compete. If it helps, I was involved in two scenarios (in Minnesota) where I signed a non-compete and went to work for a competitor. Both times, the judge threw out the case saying the company couldn't keep me from being gainfully employed if I wasn't going to disrupt their business. It was a hard sell since I was going to a startup and they were a fortune 1000 company.

2 - Tell your Dad to start planning as if he will get laid off. Start putting together a plan for his own business. Contacts, companies, phone numbers, information on their equipment - anything he can get his hands on. In short, start stockpiling information now. The more he has, the sooner he gets off the ground. Also, start talking to people to see how motivated they would be to start something on their own.

4 - Tell him to dust off his resume and start sending it out to recruiters. I know for a fact there's a ton of HP hardware vendors or re-sellers that could use his experience.

In short, start planning for the worst. Hopefully he gets through this, but he should assume the worst and hope for the best. If he does get laid off, he's already ready to hit the ground running instead of wallowing about being a company for so long. Trust me, companies would die to have a guy with his contacts and experience. This is by no means a dead end or career ending by any stretch.

An additional idea to supplement income while building his business or looking for a new job would be to join an expert network. Consultants/investors can pay upwards of $1000/hour to speak with industry veterans across all different functions.

Some examples: GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group) Cognolink AlphaSights

Most states are "right to work" states, which means that it is difficult (or impossible) for an employer to enforce a non-compete if they lay you off. Unless he signs something to the contrary while taking severance. It'd be worth the $150 half-hour lawyer fee to get an official legal opinion on this.

Small world - my dad's another one of those 4 HP-ES folks left from the blue days. I agree with the advice here and I've forwarded him a link to the comments (hi dad!).

You should 100% check with a lawyer about those supposed non-compete things you sign. In many states, as I understand, they aren't even worth the paper they are printed upon.