Age: 60
Title: CIO and VP of IT
Salary: I can't divulge it, but I took a 25% pay cut.
Company: Medical Action Industries Inc.
Annual Revenue: $141 million
Industry: Surgical product manufacturing and distribution
Location: Hauppauge, N.Y.
Help Wanted: Medical Action needed someone to select an enterprise resource planning system. It worked out, and I stayed.
Surprise Perk: Eight-minute commute; I have seven children, so that's a good thing.
Selling Point: Sanity; came from a large company with a confused IT environment.
How did you get that job, anyhow?: I was at my dentist's office waiting for the novocaine to set in, and my dentist asked me what I was doing for work. He could tell by the tone of my voice that I wasn't happy. Then he told me he had another patient, the CEO of Medical Action Industries, who was looking to fill a CIO role. My dentist wouldn't let me out of the chair until I told him I would go in for an interview.
Next step: Retire
This was first published in July 2006