Keeping search for dream job from becoming a nightmare

Planners help single mother keep her finances in line while she hunts for a new career

By AVRUM D. LANK
alank@journalsentinel.com

Posted: March 25, 2006

Shorewood - Barbara Markoff's story begins with the loss of a parent. She would like to ensure that it doesn't end with the loss of her legacy.

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On Oct. 30, 2003, Markoff's mother, Audrey, died at 75, leaving a dark emotional hole in the life of her daughter. An inheritance of about $400,000 brought only a little solace.

But the money did let Barbara Markoff, now 52, buy two important things: time to think about her future and a condo on a quiet cul-de-sac in Shorewood.

After almost two decades as a self-employed consultant, and half a dozen as a single mother, Markoff felt it was time for a change. With the inheritance, "I had a (financial) cushion that I didn't have before," she said recently, curled up on a couch in her sunny, second-floor living room.

She decided that her days of self-employment should end.

"I want less fragmentation in my life," she said. "I have lost the heart for being a consultant because I want more fulfillment."

As a consultant, she would advise an organization on how to change but then leave before that advice was implemented.

"I am tired of always leaving; I want to find a place to stay," she said.

About a year ago, she set out on a disciplined search to find a job in community relations with a Milwaukee-area company, using the inheritance to supplement a diminishing income from consulting. So far, she has not landed that dream job while seeing her finances erode. So earlier this year, she decided to seek outside help.

Enter Michael P. Haubrich, a planner with Financial Service Group in Racine, who volunteered to assist Markoff, seeing in her a good candidate for a program he is developing that integrates financial and career planning. Under Haubrich's system, career change can be as important as finding the right investments in reaching your maximum earning potential and emotional satisfaction.

Pauline Foster and Jane Schroeder, career counselors with the Lindisfarne Group in Elm Grove, also volunteered to help with a life makeover for Markoff. The process began earlier this year, and the Journal Sentinel will follow her progress.

Markoff grew up in Chicago, coming to Milwaukee in 1981 to work for Gimbels department store. She left there to work for what was then Marine Bank, only to see her job disappear in the wake of a corporate restructuring.

Her marriage was ending at the same time, and Markoff decided to make a break with her past by leaving the corporate world and becoming a consultant.

She was successful at it, earning $40,000 to $50,000 a year at her peak by helping companies with team building, diversity planning and training and community relations.

"I earned enough to do what I liked," Markoff said. "I had work, volunteer work and travel."

Her personal life progressed, too.

In October 1997, Markoff brought home her daughter, Lilyana, from an adoption agency in Texas.

Then, when Lilyana was 5 months old, she became violently ill, eventually being diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Markoff spent almost two months at Lilyana's bedside at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, leaving only to work.

The treatment worked. Lilyana is now 8 and a thriving second-grader at Atwater Elementary School in Shorewood.

The situation could have bankrupted Markoff, but fortunately she had received advice not to formally adopt Lilyana for a few months. As a result, the state of Texas took care of the hospital bills. Even though a formal adoption was later made, Texas still provides hospitalization insurance for the girl and sends Markoff a monthly stipend for Lilyana's benefit. It has offered her free college tuition should she attend school in the Lone Star State.

The insurance and college offer remove a lot of the usual financial pressures felt by single parents, although Markoff pays for her own health insurance and wants to put away money for Lilyana's college.

A few suggestions

After a first meeting with the financial and career professionals, Haubrich found little to criticize in Markoff's approach to finances.

"She has really done a remarkably good job by herself. There isn't an awful lot of value a planner is going to add," he said. But he did make one suggestion.

Part of her inheritance is invested in individual retirement accounts, from which she must make minimal annual withdrawals. But because her income now is small, Haubrich said, Markoff is in a low tax bracket.

In those circumstances, she should take more out of the IRAs, trying to drain them before she must pay higher taxes on withdrawals when her income - and tax bracket - go up.

He understands why her consulting income is down, and addressing that is part of the strength of his new system, which integrates both career and financial planning.

"She doesn't articulate this, but I can just imagine if your focus and drive is toward getting a job inside a company, you are not going to be doing things that attract customers if you are self-employed."

Haubrich is still analyzing Markoff's financial condition to see if any more suggestions need to be made. Markoff would like to organize her finances so she can leave a charitable legacy, buy a second home and continue volunteering at non-profit organizations.

Foster said Markoff is conducting her job search intelligently. She found a mentor and is networking hard, and her résumé has penetrated several large companies.

"She is a very bright person. She just struck me as being very flexible and very open," Foster said.

Markoff has been asked to fill out several tests and questionnaires to help Foster and Schroeder assess her strengths and weaknesses.

At the moment, they think her goal of working as a community relations staffer is realistic.

"But there are so few of those jobs around," Foster said. "The information we will glean from the (assessment) instruments will help. . . . We may come up with something completely different."

From the March 26, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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