Sometimes Fred Strnisa thinks about retirement. When he sees familiar names in the obituaries, or when the winter wind whips his upstate New York home, Strnisa, 81, wonders if maybe it’s time for him to stop working as a professor of semiconductor manufacturing and technology at Hudson Valley Community College. 

Then he quickly dismisses the thought. “I really enjoy what I’m doing more than I’d enjoy retirement,” he says. 

The regard is mutual: Strnisa earns high marks from his students and supervisors at the college, where he teaches a full course load during the academic year. He arrived there in 2001 after a varied career in corporate America, academia, and state government. After retiring for the first time at age 55, he opened up his own business selling used cars, then answered an ad seeking a physics teacher for the local community college.

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