Here’s an interesting twist on public health: healthy aging and financial security. This week our guests Catherine Collinson and Patti Rowey from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies talk about aging and what financial security means to physical and mental health as people approach retirement.

Lexie Fahrion:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to From the Front Row, brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. My name is Lexie Fahrion, and I’m joined by Steve Sonnier. And if this your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they are relevant to anyone both in and out of the field. Today, we’re going to be chatting with Catherine Collinson and Patti Rowey from the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.

Lexie Fahrion:

TCRS is dedicated to educating the American public on trends, issues, and opportunities related to saving and planning for retirement and achieving financial security in retirement. As the CEO and president of TCRS, Catherine brings more than two decades of retirement industry related experience and is nationally recognized voice on retirement trend. As the vice president of TCRS, Patti, likewise, brings more than 20 years of retirement experience and is a retirement and market trend expert as well as an advocate for Americans who are most at risk for achieving financially secure retirement.

Steve Sonnier:

Welcome to the both of you and thank for joining on today.

Catherine Collinson:

Hey, thanks for having us on the show.

Patti Rowey:

Yes, we’re delighted to be a part of it. Thank you.

Steve Sonnier:

How did you both become involved in the retirement industry? How do you think your field really intersects with the goals of public health professionals? Because they can seem different, just at least on paper, where they may not appear immediately connected.

Catherine Collinson:

Well, that’s a really interesting question, Steve, and we’ll start with, how did we end up in the retirement industry. Because I think if you ask both of us when we were back in college what we wanted to do for our career, I don’t know anybody in college in fact that said, “I want to be in the retirement industry.” Just not top of mind. So how I got into it was one of my first employers was an early adopter of a 401(k) plan in the mid ‘80s. So I started saving in a 401(k) by 1987. Signed up the same month that the stock market crashed, but I had no savings to lose. It was just signing up. And I was so inspired by the 401(k) plan and so intrigued by it that a few years later, I got a call from a headhunter that Transamerica was getting into the 401(k) business, had I even heard of that business? I said, “Oh my gosh, yes. I’ve been saving in one for years.” And the rest is history.

Catherine Collinson:

And then we’ll go to the second part of your question. Having worked in the industry for 20 years, is we think about retirement so often, it’s looked at as a financial equation. Are you financially ready to retire? However, we want to be able to enjoy that time when the time comes. And healthy aging is just as important. To truly achieve a successful retirement involves both financial security as well as healthy aging. And there are many intersections of health and financial well-being, which has become a big part of our focus.

Steve Sonnier:

How about yourself, Patti as well?

Patti Rowey:

Same thing. And certainly I can date myself by saying the job that I took in 1990, I looked in the newspaper and found a job in marketing and it was with a financial services company. So certainly I doubt either you Lexie or Steve, looked in a newspaper for a job postings, but that’s what we used to do. And when I went to this financial services company similarly, I didn’t enroll in a 401(k). They had a different type of defined-contribution retirement plan and all employees were automatically enrolled in that plan. It’s a little bit different than a 401(k), but it was a very generous plan. And also that financial services company, we were in the business of helping people save for retirement. That company did a lot of defined benefit advisory at the time and then morphed into 401(k) and other types of defined-contribution plans, which we can give a little bit more details on later. But similarly, it went from there and I focus more and more of the work that I did at that company on retirement.

Patti Rowey:

I agree with Catherine that the intersection isn’t necessarily obvious, but healthy aging is so important. And in preparation for this interview, I was thinking about my own experiences with people saving and planning for retirement and thought about my own parents. I’m the youngest of my family. So my mom was in her late 40s and my dad in his late 50s when they had me. And they continued to work, they both worked until their early 70s. And when I live back East for a little bit, I got a call from my mom and, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” “Well, your dad had a mild heart attack.” And thank goodness it was mild. He recovered fine. But at the time, he was already about 70 and his cardiologist recommended that he stay in the workforce and ask to go part-time in order to continue to get up every day, have a routine, have an interaction with people, be mobile, and keep his mind stimulated. So I use him as a great example of being able to work into a 70s and also with the suggestion of his cardiologists to make it work for him and his employer to allow him to go part-time. I think that’s where this whole public health comes in helping us all work toward healthy aging and healthy retirement.

Lexie Fahrion:

I just kind of want to highlight something that you both mentioned with that healthy aging, because it’s easy for me as an undergrad in college to think of retirement as a concept that is so far out there for me, personally, and still a little ways away for my parents themselves, but this whole concept of healthy aging and public health is just a huge and vastly interesting field to get into. And I just kind of wanted to highlight that for anyone who might listen to this later and think, “Oh, retirement, that’s too far off for me or anyone that I know.” But going off of that, what are some of the concerns and kind of on the flip side, opportunities that are out there right now for the retirement industry and professional given everything going on with the COVID-19 pandemic?

Catherine Collinson:

Wow! Big question. And I love the fact that you brought in opportunities, because even beyond the health impacts of the pandemic, people’s finances are being tremendously impacted. Everything from employment considerations, if there’s been layoffs or furloughs. In our survey work, we’ve seen that more than half of workers who are either employed or recently laid off or furloughed have encountered one or more negative impacts to their income. If not laid off or furloughed, reductions in pay, reductions in hours. All these things impact our ability to save. And one of the things, basic principle of saving and investing for retirement, is saving consistently overtime, over a career that can last 30 or 40 years. And the pandemic has proven to be extraordinarily disruptive to those principles. And we see some segments of the population being more negatively impacted than others.

Catherine Collinson:

For example, we see women in particular and we see the headlines every day how women have been trying to juggle their careers, their jobs, their income while homeschooling, possibly caregiving for an aging parent, and it’s just turned out to be too much. Some employers are more supportive of work-life balance than others. And we’re seeing in the numbers, women leaving the workforce in droves, which is really, really scary.

Catherine Collinson:

One other concern that the pandemic has also shown, we knew as researchers that people had inadequate emergency savings, a rainy day fund. And the pandemic has also really put a spotlight on that, that we all need to have and save for emergencies as well as retirement and other financial goals.

Catherine Collinson:

So with that, it doesn’t sound like, “Well, where are the opportunities?” But there are opportunities. So that’s a big focus of our research. We’re always on the lookout for actionable insights that are within reach, that you may not be able to do everything or you may, at the moment, not have money available to save, but steps that you can take that in the long run can really help improve your outcomes. And that could be everything from doing a budget and setting forth a plan, which sounds pretty obvious, but most people still aren’t taking that step yet, to estimating your needs, to just thinking about the long-term in a way that you haven’t before. From a broader societal perspective and our safety nets, our Social Security and Medicare, which were under strain before the pandemic and even more so now. The pandemic has laid bare all the weaknesses in all of our systems and it’s a really important time to learn from those experiences so that as we rebuild and redesign, we’re infusing the lessons of experience in building a better, stronger system. And that’s the optimist in me. It’s terrible we’re going through a pandemic, but there is an opportunity to rebuild better and stronger systems that are all inclusive and support everyone.

Steve Sonnier:

I think about the rainy day fund analogy that I’ve heard many times and the insignificance of that figure now, especially right … I think my common one that I heard was you need $1,000 in just your immediate savings so you can pour it out, just in case something comes up. If it’s a car crash or takes care of some emergency expenses. And now, seeing the challenge of the pandemic and how that it’s not enough and folks need to be really thinking about their financial obligations and their retirement obligations too for these troubles that come later down the road. You touched briefly on the survey work of TCRS, but can you elaborate more on how it relates to younger generations or students who are getting ready to go out into their careers? What are things that they need to be looking at? Especially now during a pandemic where budgets are tight and there’s a lot of competition for jobs.

Patti Rowey:

I think your point about competition for jobs is an excellent segue to a tip that we have been giving to our college interns as they’re sadly leaving their internships with us. But they’re looking for jobs and fortunately, we have two interns who have graduated in the job market and they’re getting multiple interviews this new year. So we’re excited about that. But the tip that we give them is to look at the whole benefits package.

Patti Rowey:

I remember when I was that age and looking for my first job out of college, I didn’t realize how valuable the retirement plan is that I referred to earlier and how much that would impact my overall benefits. So we recommend to all students coming out of college and all job seekers, be they those graduates or be they people who lost their jobs in the pandemic, to look at the whole benefits package. Of course, we’ve already talked about retirement, but a lot of companies are now starting to also help students pay off student debt, which is important for vast lot of young people in college, as well as healthcare. We talked about healthcare. It’s such a big topic in the country. Affordable Care Act is coming back into discussions, but healthcare coverage is super important also for people looking at the whole benefits package. So that’s the tip that we can give to the youngest of the people graduating college and looking at new jobs.

Lexie Fahrion:

That a great tip and I think it’s super important, especially as someone who will be in the job market soon. I know Steve’s in a similar position. Do either of you have any other kind of ABCs for looking at that new job or looking at that retirement or benefits package going off of that initial thing? Like, what specifically should students or anyone entering the job market be looking for?

Catherine Collinson:

First of all, it’s just having the mindset that a benefits package is part of your overall compensation. So some jobs may pay a lot, but if you’re not getting health insurance or retirement benefits or other employee benefits that you may need or have to pay for on the outside, it’s an important form of your compensation. And also, employers that are offering benefits, it tends to be pretty competitive. And employers wanting to attract and recruit people as that being a really nice incentive for prospective employee. So it’s really important to just be on the lookout for it and feel free to ask questions. In any job interview situation, they’re interviewing you, likewise, you’re interviewing them and learning about the company as well.

Catherine Collinson:

As Patti touched on, our current interns have been interviewing for some really exciting positions. And it seems like, since the first of the year, the job market’s picking up. And that’s good news for everyone. But to be savvy and just really run the numbers. Spreadsheet it out so that you’re making informed decisions. And then the other thing is, if you get the job and accept the … Get the offer and start the job, be sure to sign up for those benefits. Sometimes you’re automatically enrolled and other times, you have to either log on or fill out some paperwork. So that’s another tip.

Steve Sonnier:

You had mentioned earlier too, about the job market increasing and also what we’ve seen during the pandemic is the kind of exit of women in the workplace and the exit of older folks also from the workplace as well. We’re looking at this changing composition of the workforce. It was kind of already happening, but really exacerbated by the pandemic. When we’re looking to transition back into hiring more folks on, what really are the benefits of having a multi-generational workforce? What do employers need to be looking at as we’re starting to open back up in certain parts of the country?

Catherine Collinson:

That’s a great question, Steve. And yeah, there’s been many, many studies that have shown that diverse workforces outperform those homogeneous workforces. We’ve seen many studies on diversity that are typically gender, or race, ethnicity, but we don’t see so much on age. In fact, in our work, we see a lot of employers offer a diversity equity and inclusion policy statement, but don’t consider age as one of those factors. And we’ve been doing a ton of work and outreach that age diversity is important in a number of regards. Multi-generational teams, like other diverse teams, can outperform non multi-generational teams. So that’s an incentive for the employer.

Catherine Collinson:

But the other incentives just for a workforce is everybody brings their experience. And to have that wealth of experience, somebody who is just out of college or just entering the workforce and in the older individuals that have lived through ups and downs and problems and have perspective and then the variety of technical skills, analytical skills to bring it all together in a really sort of fun, congenial fashion can really, really, really produce results that wouldn’t be possible for any group to attempt on their own.

Catherine Collinson:

Our team is a multi-generational team. With our interns, we’ve got Gen Z, we’ve got millennials, we’ve got a couple of Gen Xer. I think I’m the solo Boomer on the team. It’s really intriguing once we see how we’re all this very similar people, but our generational experience is really unique, uniquely different among us. So it’s cool.

Catherine Collinson:

One of the big challenges however, especially as it relates to older workers, people have the potential of living longer than any other time in history, which implies that we’re either going to be working longer or retired longer or both. And yet in our research, most retirees don’t even make it to 65. They’re retiring sooner than they expected. And often because of employment related issues. So ageism is still alive and well, and especially amid … Even before the pandemic, employers are reluctant or hadn’t even thought of opening their hearts and minds for a welcoming environment for older job candidates or older workers and now that concern is even more so, with so many people losing jobs. We saw it in the Great Recession. People over 40 and then over 50 had a much harder time and it took them longer to find work when the economy began recovering then their younger counterparts. A good job is the single most important ingredient to one’s ability to achieve retirement security.

Patti Rowey:

Yeah. I mentioned my dad working into his 70s. But as I said, my mom also worked into her 70s and they were fortunate to have those opportunities. Other thing we find, as Catherine said, a lot of companies aren’t as open to experienced employees as my parents employers were, and that’s important. People want to work longer, our research definitely shows that, but there just aren’t always opportunities for them. So one area that we work hard on is trying to promote among employers the benefits of having experienced employees on their staff and really creating that multi-generational workforce.

Lexie Fahrion:

Earlier, you talked a little bit about how … I think, Catherine, you mentioned how in this pandemic, it’s really highlighted a lot of weaknesses in our system. And what you just said being a major one of them is how we don’t view older, more experienced worker in the way they should be viewed as a valuable asset to new jobs and new companies. And you’ve already highlighted on some of the ways that your research is approaching that issue, but I was kind of wanting to go back to the social services aspect. There’s obviously a lot of individual responsibility that falls on people when it comes to planning for retirement and setting yourself up for financial stability. But what do you two think socially, policy-wise, we can be doing better to help people along that path, especially in times like this?

Catherine Collinson:

Well, we even recently asked a survey question of what the new president and administration can be doing to help people achieve a financially secure retirement. And the top four most often cited responses related to strengthening our social safety nets. Ensuring that social security is sustainable for current and future generations, access to affordable healthcare, ensuring Medicare is sustainable, and innovations to make long-term care services and support more accessible and affordable. And those are so critical to not only our financial well-being and retirement, but to our health as well.

Steve Sonnier:

You’re touching on those points too about the long-term services and supports. And earlier, you had mentioned the transition from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plan. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what those look like now especially for audience members who might not be as informed on these issues as we are?

Catherine Collinson:

Well, the retirement landscape is constantly evolving. And in fact, people are in the workforce long enough, over 30 or 40 years that the landscape will change over the course of our working careers. And our parents and grandparents … I’ll say my parents and grandparents generation as a Boomer, first of all, people often could work for an employer for life. People didn’t didn’t switch jobs the way they do now. So if you got a good job with a good employer that was stable, you stayed at that job. And employers were, in many ways, more paternalistic, offering a defined benefit pension plan or a traditional pension that your retirement benefit was essentially a function of your years of service, and perhaps you’re either average or highest five years pay before you retired. So formula driven, a guaranteed pension benefit.

Catherine Collinson:

And then, in the ‘80s, 401(k)s came along as a way to save on top of other forms of retirement savings. On top of Social Security, on top of defined-benefit plans. When they were invented, so to speak, they were never intended to replace defined-benefit plans. And 401(k)s or defined contribution plans being employer-sponsored, but employee funded and at the employer’s discretion if they want to offer any sort of matching contribution to the plan. And most employers do, by the way. These employee funded plans were never intended to replace traditional pensions yet. As we look back 40 years later, that’s exactly what happened.

Steve Sonnier:

With Lexie’s comment about the social responsibility in the change of these items, there’s the transitioning aging workforce who has to care for older parents, who have different responsibilities. How has that really evolved now? And especially during the pandemic too, having to care for an aging parent is still an obligation for many folks amid these trying times.

Catherine Collinson:

Yes. And the pandemic has also laid bare the weaknesses in our long-term care services and support. In terms of both accessibility and affordability, hiring a caregiver or assisted living facility or paying for long-term care, whatever support is needed is very expensive and relatively a few people have long-term care insurance. And what’s happened is adult children and grandchildren and spouses or family members have become the caregivers, doing priceless work that generally comes without any sort of pay. And it’s happening to people at a time when they’re potentially raising their own family. So they have other financial goals and it could be very disruptive to their employment.

Catherine Collinson:

One of our recent worker surveys found that more than a third either already have been or are currently serving as caregivers, and almost nine out of ten made some sort of adjustment to their employment. Ranging from missing days of work to quitting their jobs all together. And this is a big issue not only for older workers, but quite surprisingly, our research sees it’s happening across generations. So Millennials in the workforce are just as likely to be caregivers as Baby Boomers. It may be for a grandparent and not a parent, but family members of all generations are being pulled in. And so as we think about caregiving and design, this is a classic example of the inclusion by design.

Catherine Collinson:

We know that it’s especially hard on older workers because they’re so close to retirement. If they leave the workforce, it’s going to be impossible to get back in and they may not be as financially ready to retire. But if we can design employment arrangements where there’s flexibility so that people can be caregivers without having to quit their jobs, that’ll help older workers stay in the workforce, but it’s also going to help younger workers as well, because life brings life circumstances.

Patti Rowey:

Having that flexibility is one awesome benefit employers can provide their employees. Another possibility is more flexible schedules, creating … Certainly a lot of us are working from home now, but that wasn’t previously the case, but that’s another area where COVID has changed the world. And some people will greatly benefit from that if they’re also caregivers. There are opportunities for employers to provide backup caregiving allowances so to speak, where there’s maybe an adult daycare that can have the respite for the caregiver. There are opportunities to offer long-term care insurance. So the employers can help employees quite a lot in this area, and certainly it’s been very exacerbated by COVID, as you said earlier. I think not only people being more sick, people juggling both ends of the spectrum, but then also the risks of being at a facility and being at a care center. So I foresee hopefully lots of good changes in the coming decade regarding caregiving.

Lexie Fahrion:

Now, you both have touched on a few times how difficult it is for those over the age of 50 to return back to the workforce once they’ve left it for whatever reason, be it COVID or be it anything else going on in life. And I know that you’re both involved in an extensive research project in Colorado, where you promote strategies for employers to recruit these individuals over 50. Could you give us a little bit of an intro to that project and what you guys are working on the coming months?

Catherine Collinson:

Thanks for that. CAFES, Colorado’s Above-Fifty Employment Strategies is a two-year project, which in collaborating with University of Iowa with funding from a Colorado-based nonprofit, NextFifty Initiative. The initial premise of the project, age friendly employers. We started out, it was the lowest unemployment rate in what? The last 50-60 years. And Colorado having a booming economy was facing labor shortages. The premise of our project is, have you considered the untapped potential of age 50 plus workers and experienced employees? And the first year was doing baseline research. And of course, many had not even thought of the untapped potential of age 50 plus employees and people wanting to work. And did a deep survey of Colorado employers, identifying where they’re doing things well, where there’s opportunities, lots and lots of opportunities as well as surfacing best practices.

Catherine Collinson:

Now, in the second year of the project, which is really exciting, the idea was to work with 30 employers. That didn’t work with COVID because of the limitations of being able to work in-person among other things and employers focus on keeping their businesses afloat versus enhancing their employment practices, but we found a way. And Steve is a big, big part of this. Steve and Professor Kaskie and of course, Patti on our team. We have a pivot plan and have gone virtual, working on a really cool tool for employers to gauge their age friendliness and learn about opportunities and best practices associated with age 50 plus employees as a vital part of the workforce.

Catherine Collinson:

Even though the pandemic has brought all sorts of economic impact, I don’t think we even wrap our heads around it at this point, it’s really, really encouraging how supportive the Colorado policymakers and business community and nonprofit community are of the effort. Truly inspiring.

Steve Sonnier:

It’s been an excellent opportunity. And yeah, we’ve done a wonderful job putting all of our resources together, putting to this online resource website, which we can share along with other folks if they’re interested in hearing more about it. But this has been an excellent opportunity and a really good crash course in the importance of a multi-generational workforce, and then the importance of ensuring that we are taking care of folks who are age 50 plus and making sure that those resources are available for them. Because eventually, as we all reflect on it, we will eventually be in these positions. We will want to have the structural supports and foundations there. So hopefully once we get to this age that we can have those kind of opportunities afforded to us and setting the precedent for it.

Catherine Collinson:

Some may already be at that …

Steve Sonnier:

Some may already be at that age. Yeah, it’s really been impressed upon me for the past two years, this unexposed area, like you have both talked about in your early college careers. Who’s going into retirement? Who’s looking at these options? It’s not very common and I wouldn’t have stumbled upon this unless I had some tangentially related experience. But really going into this issue and this matter has really shown me the importance of creating these structural supports, investing in our future both in the retirement aspects, but also in the workforce side of things too. And the opportunities presented by the folks who we’ve been able to partner with so far in Colorado have been fantastic and being part of their community has been wonderful.

Steve Sonnier:

When you both are looking at the opportunities that you had across your career, whether it’s in the retirement side of things or are looking into workforce trends, what are some things that you thought you knew but were later wrong about?

Patti Rowey:

I will start. And I hope I don’t overuse my parents as an example or as examples, but they, as I said, both worked into their 70s. They were both healthy enough to do that and have the opportunity to do so. So growing up, I just figured, “Oh, you know, people will get to retirement by working as long as they can and want to.” And what I have learned through my research and all the work I’ve done in this field is, as we said earlier, that isn’t always the case. And so that is something that was ingrained in me that I realize is I guess wrong or not the case for everybody. And those are the people we really need to help.

Catherine Collinson:

I’ll build on that and then I’ll have another one insight to share, is … And I don’t know that we got it wrong. I think it’s something more that we’ve just underestimated is people work for a lot of different reasons. Of course, incoming benefits are often at the top of the list, but there’s all sorts of other reasons why people work and want to continue working in retirement. Ranging from staying active and involved and join the social connections, keeping our brains alert, just enjoying the work, and having a sense of purpose. It’s surprising, but it’s not surprising, so many people want to continue working. Maybe not full time, full blast 24/7, but at least continue working to just stay involved. And that’s really exciting. And taking the idea a step further.

Catherine Collinson:

One of the organizations that I’ve gotten to know over the years and just a huge fan of their work is Encore, Encore.org. Check it out. Which is an organization dedicated to people who are transitioning out of traditional employment, retiring, and helping them gain the skills and reboot going to work for a nonprofit, either on a volunteer basis or maybe a paycheck that might have been different than a corporate job. But it’s a way to help them take all of their knowledge and experience and apply it in a new and different way and giving back. Which is really cool organization. Check it out.

Catherine Collinson:

And then the other thing, and this has more to do with life and work. The multi-generational workforce that we’ve seen in our research, and I wouldn’t say that I got it wrong, but I would say it was just a really big surprise. And in our survey work, we ask a question that I like to refer to as the happiness question. It’s a number of different level of agreement statements ranging from, “I’m a generally person” to “I am enjoying my life.” And then we have, at the other end of the spectrum, a couple of the answers or responses are, ”I often feel anxious and depressed” and another one is, “I’m isolated and lonely.” Had some shocking findings. Overall, in the pandemic, people are generally hanging in there. But the response rate for those two questions or those two items, feeling isolated and alone and often and anxious and depressed, young people are twice as likely to agree with those statements than their older counterparts. The Millennials are twice as likely to indicate they often feeling anxious and depressed than Baby Boomers.

Catherine Collinson:

And it is a high response rate. More than 50%. And that is really concerning. A public health issue, we have to be very concerned about mental health right now, especially the effects of the pandemic on mental health. But also, to recognize that there are a lot of people who are having a really hard time. With the anxiety and depression and isolated and loneliness, the digital online generation is more likely to feel isolated and alone than their older counterparts, which also is something that we … A topic for research and to really understand so that we can help people feel more connected. And I also see it as a call to action as a Baby Boomer. I see you to call to action for my contemporaries to reach out, knowing that a high percentage of the younger people I interact with. When we see a survey that the response rate is more 50%, and working with people in our multi-generational team or outside of work to be extra sensitive and to tune into it and even understand that with the life experience that I’ve had in my own way, I might be able to help me a calming influence, a shoulder and ear, a hug, an air hug to help. Because we’re all in this together.

Lexie Fahrion:

I think that’s a wonderful tie in to almost everything you both have talked about in this episode. You’re mentioning the benefits of a multi-generational workforce. Not only that, but just multi-generational relationship and how that can really truly help people in times of crisis. And I think that’s just a great point. What do both of you think is the most pressing issue in your field right now that the general public may not be aware of and needs to be aware of?

Patti Rowey:

The importance that Catherine mentioned with public policy, ensuring that Social Security, Medicare funding, helping create long-term care solutions and making healthcare affordable. Those are the policy issues. We’ve also touched on the personal issues. I think you said it yourself, people will need to take more personal responsibility for saving and planning for retirement because of the changes in the employer plans and the potential changes in Social Security benefits over time. Those are the, I think the most pressing things. And to be aware and be cognizant of changes as they happen.

Catherine Collinson:

Yeah. And I’ll add one last one to the list. And I’ll call it, taking a step back. A really big closing spot because we have touched on so many pressing issues. But one of the thing that will help get us through this pandemic and help us into the future is the knowledge, belief, confidence, and faith that the pandemic will end because it will at some point, and that we have the collective know-how to solve these problems. We have the collective know-how. It’s a matter of vision, focus, and working together to implement solutions. And as I mentioned earlier, build better, stronger systems than we’ve had before.

Steve Sonnier:

I think those are wonderful rounding out points and very inspiring and ultimately, a big focus of what we’ve talked about today is the ability to collaborate, the ability to rely on one another, and to work to make a better system that helps out folks, that delivers more equitable chances for opportunities at employment that allows us to age in a healthy manner and that allows us to pursue happy lives and safe lives and ones where we feel fulfilled and have that sense of purpose.

Steve Sonnier:

So I want to thank you both for coming on today. What a wonderful discussion. It was a pleasure to have and chat with you further. So thanks again for coming on.

Patti Rowey:

Thank you so much for having us. It’s been a fun conversation.

Catherine Collinson:

Yeah. Thanks Steve and Lexie.

Steve Sonnier:

That’s it for our episode this week. Big thanks to Catherine Collinson and Patti Rowey for coming on with us today. This episode was hosted and written by Steve Sonnier and Lexie Fahrion. This episode was edited and produced by Steve Sonnier. You can find more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and SoundCloud. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with your colleagues. Our team can be reached at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode was brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Keep on keeping on out there.